Climate change... Much ado about nothing?

And there you raise a conundrum that illustrates how there are few easy answers.

Germany moved back towards coal as an interim when they decided to close their nuclear power, on the grounds of safety and potential pollution in the event of an accident. Which emissions are worse, the real GH or the potential irradiated wasteland?

China moved heavily to coal as a quick interim as they started to develop and industrialise. A huge proportion of that industrialisation, of course, is outsourced manufacturing for us. So whose emissions are they?

Any move can only be a gradual one - the main argument is over the speed of that gradient. And, yes, there may be retrograde steps en route...

You are right that the planet cares about absolute emissions. 

Total emissions = "mean per capita GHG emissions" * population 

QED one of the things the planet cares about is mean per capita emissions.

Using the same datasets* from earlier, the mean per capita no. is 4.41 tons. Following your line of reasoning (its absolute emissions which matter), everyone above that line needs to reduce, and the further above that mean the more they need to reduce. That means pretty much the entirety of the rich developed world.

I think you'll find "the planet" doesn't care a hoot about sub-division into artificial geo-political "teams", and a consequent league table which aggregates individual contributions into those teams. Teams of monumentally different sizes and at different stages of development. And teams which can change. If the UK splits into Scotland, Wales, England and the IoW, while NI joins Eire, the aggregated emissions of the populations doesn't change even though the "league table" of nations does. I think "the planet" won't care a hoot about such things. 

Again I emphasise I am not suggesting that developing countries don't need to plan how to increase well being while controlling/minimising emissions. They do. And with our help. But lets be clear: they are likely to grow first because they are coming from a base of very low emissions per person associated with being poor. On the other hand, the argument is that because I associate with a very small team I need do nothing; whereas the onus is on others who for no reason other than they happen to be in a very large "team"; despite the fact that my own contribution might be 3/4/10 times theirs, and they are likely 5-10 times poorer than I am. That's the net of it. 

I suppose if you have an irradiated wasteland you wouldn't have any industry or population adding to the pollution load.

I think the scary story I read that relates to proportionality of emissions is that the average US citizen uses more electricity running a fridge than 90% of the world population use in total.
One of my American friends says he burns about 10 tonnes of wood a year 8 in the winter to heat and 2 in the summer for grilling etc 

in 2021 US emissions from coal rose by 17% ( yes 17%) in 2021. 

My image is 26 people in the lifeboat, me, 5 Americans and 20 Chinese*.  While I'm frantically trying to bail out, the others are still busily drilling holes in the hull... 

*Being the approximate demographic ratio

Clearly country A.  Whatever country B does will have very little overall impact on the planet, while the leader of country A needs to take some drastic action. The leader of B can mirror that action in lockstep, but the leader of A cannot just ignore his majority contribution.