> the CO2 produced by Chinese coal-fired plants eventually makes its way to me
Not. It doesn't work like that. CO2 is not even waste in the strict sense of the term; is basic for our survival. If you wipe all CO2 from the air, humankind will go extinct in a hurry because all plants would die really fast. All what we eat started as a CO2 molecule being captured by a plant somewhere.
The problem to recycle or clean it from the air has been solved for us by plants millions of years ago. Plants love CO2 and clean it for free.
Therefore, in the real life, many CO2 produced by Chinese coal-fired plants will be soon captured by a weed or a tree. The rest will go to the atmosphere where will hang on, maybe for a long time, but far away from you.
If you touch or inhale radiactive waste you could die in literally seconds. If you encounter CO2, as long that there is also enough oxygen around, nothing will happen. You will inhale it, will readily enter in your bloodstream, do a couple of roller coaster trips and will be discarded. All of we do it, many times a day for our entire life, without noticeable damage in our body.
And we could say that CO2 is a signifiant danger for the climate, but again, there are much worse molecules in this sense. Methane for example.
