Green

Visualizing All the World’s Carbon Emissions by Country

Published

6 months ago

November 8, 2023

Marcus Lu

Article/Editing:

Bruno Venditti

all carbon emissions by country

Visualizing All The World’s Carbon Emissions By Country

The greenhouse effect, essential for sustaining Earth’s life-friendly temperatures, has been intensified by burning fossil fuels.

This amplification of the natural greenhouse effect has led to significant alterations to the planet’s climate system.

The graphic above uses data from the Global Carbon Atlas to explore which countries contribute the most to CO₂ emissions.

Ranked: Global CO₂ Emissions by Country

According to the Global Carbon Atlas, the world’s top polluters are China, India, and the U.S., which accounted for 52% of the world’s CO₂ in 2021.

These countries are also the biggest in terms of population.

Rank	Country	Region	Total Emissions (%)
#1	🇨🇳 China	Asia	30.9%
#2	🇺🇸 U.S.	North America	13.5%
#3	🇮🇳 India	Asia	7.3%
#4	🇷🇺 Russia	Europe	4.7%
#5	🇯🇵 Japan	Asia	2.9%
#6	🇮🇷 Iran	Asia	2.0%
#7	🇩🇪 Germany	Europe	1.8%
#8	🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia	Other	1.8%
#9	🇮🇩 Indonesia	Asia	1.7%
#10	🇰🇷 South Korea	Asia	1.7%
#11	🇨🇦 Canada	North America	1.5%
#12	🇧🇷 Brazil	South America	1.3%
#13	🇹🇷 Türkiye	Europe	1.2%
#14	🇿🇦 South Africa	Africa	1.2%
#15	🇲🇽 Mexico	North America	1.1%
#16	🇦🇺 Australia	Oceania	1.1%
#17	🇬🇧 UK	Europe	0.9%
#18	🇮🇹 Italy	Europe	0.9%
#19	🇵🇱 Poland	Europe	0.9%
n/a	🌐 Rest of World	Other	21.7%

In terms of CO₂ emissions per capita (metric tons), the U.S. is relatively high at 15.32, while China and India rank lower at 7.44 and 1.89, respectively.

Historically, the U.S. has been the largest carbon emitter, releasing 422 billion metric tons of CO₂ into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. This is equivalent to almost a quarter of all CO₂ produced from fossil fuels and industrial activities.

Given their massive populations and the fact that countries typically increase their emissions as they become more developed, China and India may continue to grow their shares even further. The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that India’s share of global emissions could rise to 10% by 2030.

All of these major contributors of carbon to the atmosphere have set goals to reduce emissions over the next decades. While the U.S. targets net-zero emissions by 2050, China aims for carbon neutrality by 2060 and India recently set a target of 2070.

Up Next

Ranked: Electric Vehicle Sales by Model in 2023

Don't Miss

Ranked: The Foods With the Largest Environmental Impact

Click for Comments

Automotive

How People Get Around in America, Europe, and Asia

Examining how people get around using cars, public transit, and walking or biking, and the regional differences in usage.

Published

3 hours ago

May 8, 2024

Pallavi Rao

A chart with the popularity of different transportation types in the Americas, Europe, and Asia, calculated by modal share.

How People Get Around in America, Europe, and Asia

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

This chart highlights the popularity of different transportation types in the Americas, Europe, and Asia, calculated by modal share.

Data for this article and visualization is sourced from ‘The ABC of Mobility’, a research paper by Rafael Prieto-Curiel (Complexity Science Hub) and Juan P. Ospina (EAFIT University), accessed through ScienceDirect.

The authors gathered their modal share data through travel surveys, which focused on the primary mode of transportation a person employs for each weekday trip. Information from 800 cities across 61 countries was collected for this study.

North American Car Culture Contrasts with the Rest of the World

In the U.S. and Canada, people heavily rely on cars to get around, no matter the size of the city. There are a few exceptions of course, such as New York, Toronto, and smaller college towns across the United States.

Region	🚗 Cars	🚌 Public Transport	🚶 Walking/Biking
North America*	92%	5%	4%
Central America	23%	42%	35%
South America	29%	40%	31%
Northern Europe	48%	29%	24%
Western Europe	43%	24%	34%
Southern Europe	50%	24%	25%
Eastern Europe	35%	40%	25%
Southeastern Asia	44%	43%	13%
Western Asia	43%	28%	29%
Southern Asia	22%	39%	39%
Eastern Asia	19%	46%	35%
World	51%	26%	22%

Note: *Excluding Mexico. Percentages are rounded.

As a result, North America’s share of public transport and active mobility (walking and biking) is the lowest amongst all surveyed regions by a significant amount.

On the other hand, public transport reigns supreme in South and Central America as well as Southern and Eastern Asia. It ties with cars in Southeastern Asia, and is eclipsed by cars in Western Asia.

As outlined in the paper, Europe sees more city-level differences in transport popularity.

For example, Utrecht, Netherlands prefers walking and biking. People in Paris and London like using their extensive transit systems. And in Manchester and Rome, roughly two out of three journeys are by car.