Has the U.S. Reduced Carbon Dioxide Emissions More Than Countries Who Are in the Paris Climate Agreement?

In Wednesday’s vice presidential debate, Vice President Mike Pence claimed, “The United States has reduced CO2 more than the countries that are still in the Paris Climate Accord, but we’ve done it through innovation and we’ve done it through natural gas and fracking.”

The United States’ carbon emissions have steadily decreased over the past few years, with the EPA reporting as of the end of 2018 “national greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by 10%” since 2005. Carbon emissions formed the vast majority of these greenhouse gas emissions. Using 2016, when...