We're comparing per capita here.
America is a much larger, more diverse country, and each individual state has its own energy policies, energy sources, energy demands, attitudes towards energy conservation, etc.
If you insist on comparing countries that are 99% identical, we will get nowhere, and nothing can be compared.
You'll never find two countries that are 99% identical, but at the same time you shouldn't compare countries that are complete polar opposites.
The reason I chose Sweden, is simply because it is a nation, with a lower density than the US, harsher weather, and far harsher terrain - yet they manage to have a CO2 output that is less than 1/3 of the US.
The Nordic countries are outliers, even in Europe. They also have good energy policies, and they drive less than in America [Americans drive about 3,000 more miles per year on average].
Like I said - the only reason Norway has such a "high" CO2 output, is because they are one of the biggest oil producing nations on the planet, despite having a tiny population, they still manage to keep their CO2 output at ~50% of the US.
Again, you can't compare a small, homogeneous nation with 5 million people to a country with 320 million people and 50 individual states each with their own energy policies, energy sources, energy demands, and attitudes towards energy conservation.
Maine has a similar density as Norway, and yet each resident has an output of over 13 tonnes. And they don't produce a shit ton of oil & gas.
The united states as a whole has a shit ton of coal mines and oil fields. What's your point? That energy sources which cause a lot of CO2 emmissions contribute a lot to a country's CO2 emissions?
Or how about Colorado? Iowa? Mississippi? Minnesota? I mean the list goes on.
Idaho, Nevada, Oregon. The list goes on.
A "small wealthy Island nation", despite the fact that the nations I mentioned aren't Island nations at all.
They're still small countries.
Most of the larger, more developed countries: Canada, Australia, America, etc., have a high CO2 output per capita.
But hey, let's throw France, Germany, and the UK in there. Now we're talking ~200 million people. The CO2 output is around 50% of the US - simply because they chose to act on environmental issues.
Germany's population density is about eight times more than America's, and it's still a much smaller country. The United Kingdom's population density is about the same, and it's also a much smaller country.
The CO2 output is around 50% of the US - simply because they chose to act on environmental issues.
I'm not denying the U.S.'s poor energy policies. I'm simply pointing out that there are several more factors involved, population density being one of them. Every climate scientist in the world will admit that population density is a factor.