You must understand that the emissions problem is global : western countries are shrinking their emissions because they are totally outsourcing polluting activities to other countries.
CO2 is totally diffuse in atmosphere and the climate change is global. Outsourcing pollution has no effect on this issue. And the fact is, global CO2 emissions are at an all time high year after year.
87% of Chinese emissions are attributable to domestic consumption. The remaining 13 % is the rest of the world, not just the West. So it doesn’t seem like what you’re saying is accurate.
[1] seems to imply it is context dependent. China is shown to be an insourcer of emissions while the trend of many Western countries (except some Nordic ones) is outsourcing emissions.
“Taken as a collective, developed countries are found to be outsourcing emissions to developed economies; however, this is largely due to the U.S. and China”
The relationship between the distance a good travels and the amount of emissions produced by that travel is not linear. Further it's a mistake to underestimate the reduction in emissions that come from productivity.
CO2 is totally diffuse in atmosphere and the climate change is global. Outsourcing pollution has no effect on this issue. And the fact is, global CO2 emissions are at an all time high year after year.