I’ve been in plenty of stupid big SUV’s with air conditioning blasting in the summer while in China. Big SUV’s are a status symbol and China summers are horrendously hot.
That being said I’m much more concerned with trash burning (it still happens, I’ve seen it plenty when driving outside of cities) and the byproducts of the intense construction that can’t be slowed down without seriously hurting their economy. I know multiple Chinese people with their retirement investments in concrete manufacturing companies that are losing big with recent government clamping down on that.
Both of these are anecdotal, sure, but then again I don’t trust official Chinese government data so anecdotal has some value.
The USA and other developed countries went through their own periods of abusing the environment during their industrial revolutions so I have to assume China will get through this as well. Things are already improving. And at least their government acknowledges it’s something they need to improve rather than actively regressing like the USA.
The US emits more CO2 while Europe releases far more NOx and other more “traditional” pollutants.
The diesel emissions scandal in the US had a European counterpart that was never dealt with. 2018 models are still polluting far above the official limits which themselves are more lax than the US. [1]
Also, Chinese people don’t drive stupid big SUV and trucks while running the AC on full blast all summer.