This article and the linked paper, rustle my jimmies. If there was a time to pull out one of my favorite quotes it is now; : "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics". - Sir Charles Dilke

In per capita terms, however, emissions from cities in the richest parts of the world are still generally higher than those from urban centres in developing countries*

So exactly the opposite of what the article's title is saying. I bet the emissions from smaller gas guzzler car-centric suburbs with non-scalable infrastructure are even higher.

In terms of sectors, the GHG emissions from the stationary energy uses (such as residential, commercial, and industrial buildings) and transportation sector contributed the most*

So cars continue to be the biggest contributor. Another point on the side of dense cities that can replace cars with public transport or biking/walking.

https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/696381/frsc-03-696381-HTML/image_m/frsc-03-696381-g001.jpg

This grossly under labelled photo seems to point towards Atlanta, Charlotte, Denver, St. Louis, LA/SD and Perth as the biggest offenders in the developed world. All of which are famously car centric. i have no idea what is going on in melbourne. Its per capita commercial building costs are through the roof, especially for a place with such moderate weather.

Chinese cities are remarkably inefficient on the surface, but most of their energy consumption seems to come from 'industrial buildings'. The primary course (paper) does not elaborate on what constitutes industrial buildings.

https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/696381/frsc-03-696381-HTML/image_m/frsc-03-696381-g004.jpg

Another grossly under-labelled graph shows the standout cities in per-capita delta. (why is there no per capita graph for the bar chart, smh). Seattle has done remarkably well, probably due to massive increase in population (denominator goes up) and replacement of manufacturing (Boeing) with Tech. But that's just speculation on my side. I have no clue what is going on with Venice ? Reclamation efforts ? Houston also seems an odd excellent performer. I wonder if it is due to a fast increasing population that is mostly settling in condos in the city instead of suburbs on the outskirts.
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I disagree with the focus of the conclusions in the paper.

My conclusion:

1. Road transportation is the main contributor to emissions in medium-large sized sparse cities. Instead of targeting per-capita efficient mega cities like Bangkok and Seoul without much head-room left, we should look at per-capita leaders like Atlanta, Perth and LA/SD to make improvements.

2. Someone needs to take a closer look at what China's 'industrial emissions' are. They are off the charts, and far outpace anything the rest of the world puts forth.

3. When people say : "The developing world's abuse of coal is causing huge emissions and the Paris climate accords don't address it'; they should say China and China exclusively. Other country's emissions are an order of magnitude off from Chinese cities at both absolute and per capita numbers. India's and SEA's cities are remarkably efficient. (probably due to underdevelopment, but still) (If this is due to the world exporting its manufacturing to China, then stringent trade laws on emissions will either lead to increased downstream prices in consuming countries or manufacturing will return to developed/greener countries due to cleaner infrastructure/tech. I am fine with both).