You may want to check your math and sources. I’ve spent a lot of time trying, so far unsuccessfully, to get some good statistics on the changes in emissions since the Kyoto Treaty. Figures are hard to come by and it seems like the world lost interest in updating statistics that might help around 2004 (which I think might be an interesting observation in itself).

It’s easy to “prove” with the statistics that I’ve found that the the U.S. has outperformed almost all of the Kyoto Treaty ratifiers since the treaty was concluded. The EU countries in sum have much higher emissions growth since the Kyoto treaty than the U.S. It’s odd that no one seems to know about that.

The U.S.’s position on that treaty was that they would not sign it because no one could realistically meet the targets agreed. Since nearly all the signatories have greater growth in CO2 emissions than the U.S., it seems that the U.S. negotiaters had a valid point.

Where I live in Norway, one of the most vocal critics of the U.S. (which, as far as I can tell has had zero growth in emissions since 1998 which is the year after Kyoto), the emissions have doubled since the signature was placed on the treaty. No one here seems to no about it or care about it, but they bash the U.S. on emissions all the time, not realizing that Norwegians, in fact, have an almost identical per capita emissions figure as the U.S.

One can easily start correlating CO2 emissions with a variety of other variables. An interesting one is population density. Countries like the U.S., Canada, Norway, etc. which have low population densities tend to use a lot of energy and create a lot of emissions. There are long distances to drive and public transport is not economical when the population is sparse.

GDP - of course, rich countries use lots of energy. Up and coming countries have the highest growth of energy usage and emissions. Those who argue that emissions and energy usage must come down are dangerously close to saying that their economies must back up a few decades. The pain of that transition is real and ugly and I don’t think anyone really wants to see it play out.

BTW, by all measures North Korea is a model of emissions control, but I don’t think anyone wants to emulate that unfortunate country. E.g. - http://leadingwedge.blogspot.com/search?q=north+korea.

P.S. You’re certainly right to suspect that the U.S. has not reduced emissions by 8%. Keep in mind, however, that the U.S. population grew by 12% between 1995 and 2004. At worst, that seems to imply zero emissions growth in the U.S. per capita which matches fairly well with the figures I can find..

Yes you expend extra indoor space on hallways and elevators but that’s around 25% of the building space and is often kept at a temperature much closer to the temperature outdoors.

You do drop tree cover, which is a serious help on some homes (the ones which are lucky to still have that carefully planted tree tanding).

(Consider my use of “heat” to mean heat transfer. Direction isn’t particularly important).

You get quite a few gains though: Your only losing heat to the outside on two sides instead of 4. On all but the top floor you don’t have to pay the costs of heating the roof.

If you own your apartment that’s where most of it stops.

If you don’t you have extra costs because land lords are cheap and don’t give a rip about efficiency. You won’t find on demand water heaters, efficient refrigerators, or lots of insulation in most apartments.

However, you’ll still find lower utility bills. It’s difficult to find a house which will get as low of utility bills as my apartment. We found one once: It was 25% smaller, had a heat pump, and was previously occupied by folks who were obviously frugal.

So I don’t know where this study is coming from. Here in the midwest of the US an apartment works out to be more efficient with respect to utility bills. It’s obviously more space efficient.

The major suck factor on apartments is the lack of green space to grow things. This isn’t at all unsolvable but it seems to be a feature that no apartment dweller wants.

High rises can have some utility advantages they rarely end up with, and those will come as the market dictates them (as energy prices rise):
Geothermal makes sense for big buildings. For your house it’s a lot of expensive work.
Solar makes more sense for the landlord because he’ll own the building long enough to get his investment back (I’m actually shocked I don’t see solar panels on every apartment and an electric bill split between the landlord and the electric provider).
I’m less sure about this, but I’m guessing that the huge parking lots on apartments give a good shot at an effective mid sized wind mill (the return on investment is quicker here than solar).

There are also financial advantages: We wouldn’t have so much of our economy wrapped up in our shelter if we didn’t all require a single family home ;). US resources are finite and we can only invest so much. If you take it away from housing it’s going to go somewhere else.