Climate Change

They may be ahead in renewable energy but they are also way ahead in Polluted cities, Polluted Air, polluted rivers, polluted lakes. An ocean around them with no fish as the poison's and the over fishing have killed them all. No birds except seabirds. So you are correct that China is ahead in renewable energy but they need to be as they pollute worse that most all industrialized countries. USA was bad 30-40 years ago. USA/Canada has cleaned up its act. China will most likely change as well, just so far, they have not.

And other parts of the world have yet to go through their most polluting stage of development. Much more the reason for the USA to take the lead and try to atone for its cultural sins of overindulgence.

The USA contains around 4.4% of the world's population, yet it consumes 16% of the world's resources. Only Qatar consumes more resources per person than the USA. The USA remains the largest user of petroleum per day. It already did the coal and the wood-burning part where most cities lived with blackened skies during much of the year. Since China has roughly 3 times the population of the USA, it's consumption of resources per person is notably less than that of the USA thanks to its ever-increasing policies of efficiency. They know they're at their limit and that their economic development is currently unsustainable. The USA also knows that, but is now intentionally heading in the wrong direction, undoing much of the hard-won progress of the past 40 years in favor of the oligarchs and the corporations currently running the country.