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Carbon Dioxide Emissions. Carbon dioxide CO2 is the primary greenhouse gas emitted through human activities.
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Infographic: Which countries emit the most greenhouse gases?

MATHIAS_Etienne
Étienne Mathias
Head of Agriculture, Forestry and Land use at Citepa
Key takeaways
  • In 2022, 53.8 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases (GHGs) were released into the atmosphere by human activities.
  • China, the USA, India, the EU and Russia are, in descending order, the biggest GHG emitters.
  • The activities responsible for these emissions are electricity and heat production, followed by manufacturing, transport, agriculture, oil extraction, buildings and waste.
  • The fall in Europe's GHG emissions since 1990 underlines, in particular, European de-industrialization in favor of imports of foreign goods.
  • However, the measurement of GHG emissions mentioned so far does not take into account the land sector or national imports and exports (unlike the carbon footprint).

In 2022, 53.8 bil­lion tonnes of green­house gas­es (GHGs) were released into the atmos­phere by human activ­i­ties1. These gas­es per­sist in the atmos­phere – from a few years to sev­er­al cen­turies, depend­ing on their nature – and their con­cen­tra­tion is increas­ing. More pre­cise­ly, in 2019, the con­cen­tra­tion of CO₂ is 47% high­er, CH₄ 156% high­er and N₂O 23% high­er than in 1750 (rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the pre-indus­tri­al era)2. As a result, the aver­age glob­al tem­per­a­ture is ris­ing, almost in pro­por­tion to the con­cen­tra­tion of CO₂, the main anthro­pogenic GHG (emit­ted by human activ­i­ties). Glob­al warm­ing for the peri­od 2011–2020 is +1.1°C com­pared with the pre-indus­tri­al era (1850–1900).

All coun­tries emit green­house gas­es. Accord­ing to the Euro­pean EDGAR data­base, Chi­na (15.7 bil­lion tonnes of CO₂e), the Unit­ed States (6 bil­lion tonnes of CO₂e), India (3.9 bil­lion tonnes of CO₂e), the Euro­pean Union (3.6 bil­lion tonnes of CO₂e) and Rus­sia (2.6 bil­lion tonnes of CO₂e) will be the biggest emit­ters in 2022. France is ranked 20th by coun­try (0.4 bil­lion tonnes of CO₂e accord­ing to the same data­base). At the very bot­tom of the rank­ing, we log­i­cal­ly find sparse­ly pop­u­lat­ed states: the Faroe Islands, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Anguil­la, the Falk­land Islands and Saint Hele­na, Ascen­sion and Tris­tan da Cun­ha emit a few tens of thou­sands of tonnes of GHG each year.

Mit­i­gat­ing cli­mate change: every ges­ture counts

Please note: this rank­ing should not be used as an excuse for “small emit­ters”. Indeed, some argue that it is point­less for coun­tries rep­re­sent­ing only a small share of glob­al emis­sions to take action. This is false for sev­er­al rea­sons. The group of coun­tries emit­ting less than 2% of GHGs – 202 out of 210, almost all of them – account for 38.4% of total emis­sions. If none of these coun­tries reduce their emis­sions, it will be impos­si­ble to respect the Paris Agree­ments and keep glob­al warm­ing below 1.5°C or even 2°C. And every con­tri­bu­tion counts, since glob­al tem­per­a­ture ris­es as the con­cen­tra­tion of GHGs in the atmos­phere increas­es. “No coun­try or sec­tor of activ­i­ty can claim to be spared the need to reduce GHG emis­sions”, con­cludes Éti­enne Mathias.

Which activ­i­ties are respon­si­ble for these emis­sions? Elec­tric­i­ty and heat gen­er­a­tion top the list this time, fol­lowed by man­u­fac­tur­ing, trans­port, agri­cul­ture, oil extrac­tion, build­ings and waste. When we look at the emis­sions of each gas, the results are very mixed. Fos­sil fuel com­bus­tion is respon­si­ble for 81% to 91% of anthro­pogenic CO₂ emis­sions, live­stock farm­ing and fos­sil fuels for the major­i­ty of CH₄ emis­sions, and fer­til­iza­tion for N₂O.

Over the last few decades, the dis­tri­b­u­tion of glob­al GHG emis­sions has changed sig­nif­i­cant­ly. Chi­na’s growth in emis­sions is the most sig­nif­i­cant, fol­low­ing an almost expo­nen­tial curve: the coun­try’s emis­sions have out­stripped those of all the oth­ers since 2004. Emis­sions from the Euro­pean Union, mean­while, have been falling sig­nif­i­cant­ly since the 1990s. As these data are pure­ly ter­ri­to­r­i­al, this trend under­lines Europe’s de-indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion in favour of imports of for­eign goods. Oth­er coun­tries, such as India, Brazil and Viet­nam, have seen their emis­sions rise steadi­ly and steadi­ly since the 70s.

While it is impos­si­ble to mea­sure each coun­try’s GHG emis­sions direct­ly, sev­er­al esti­mates exist. “They each illus­trate dif­fer­ent aspects of the impact of human activ­i­ties, and each has its lim­i­ta­tions”, points out Éti­enne Math­ias. The data men­tioned so far in the arti­cle con­cern emis­sions of all GHGs (reflect­ed in the unit CO₂ equiv­a­lent) linked to human activ­i­ties – indus­try, trans­port, agri­cul­ture, etc. – exclud­ing the land sec­tor. They there­fore do not take into account emis­sions linked to land con­ver­sion, defor­esta­tion, for­est fires and so on. “When look­ing at mit­i­ga­tion actions, it is impor­tant to look at emis­sions with­out includ­ing the land sec­tor; the scope of which can vary from one indi­ca­tor to anoth­er,” explains Éti­enne Math­ias. “It is these emis­sions that are pri­mar­i­ly tar­get­ed by pub­lic policies.”

Anoth­er impor­tant clar­i­fi­ca­tion: these data only include the ter­ri­to­r­i­al emis­sions of States. GHG emis­sions from goods man­u­fac­tured abroad and import­ed are there­fore not includ­ed in the above indi­ca­tors. Only the “car­bon foot­print” indi­ca­tor includes nation­al imports and exports. Its cal­cu­la­tion is based on the sum of house­hold emis­sions, domes­tic pro­duc­tion and imports, minus the emis­sions asso­ci­at­ed with exports. Accord­ing to the lat­est report by the French High Coun­cil for the Cli­mate3, France’s car­bon foot­print in 2022 will be 1.6 times high­er than its ter­ri­to­r­i­al emissions.

The lat­est fig­ures for France

Between 2022 and 2023, France’s GHG emis­sions fell by 5.8% to 373 mil­lion tonnes of CO₂e4. This esti­mate is based on the offi­cial nation­al inven­to­ry required by inter­na­tion­al com­mit­ments, cal­cu­lat­ed by the Citepa asso­ci­a­tion. The report empha­sizes that all major emit­ting sec­tors have con­tributed to this reduc­tion. But behind this good news lies a wor­ry­ing result for the future. 

The nation­al low-car­bon strat­e­gy (Stratégie Nationale Bas-Car­bone, SNBC) sets France’s tar­gets for achiev­ing car­bon neu­tral­i­ty by 2050. In 2023, the tar­get is well with­in reach if the land sec­tor is not includ­ed. But when car­bon sinks – i.e. the CO₂ stored in plants and soils – are includ­ed, France this time fails to meet the tar­get it had set itself for the 2019–2023 peri­od. The cause? The con­sid­er­able reduc­tion in the car­bon sink, down from 45 mil­lion tonnes of CO₂ in the 2000s to 20 mil­lion tonnes of CO₂ today “due to the cou­pled effect of repeat­ed droughts since 2015, dis­eases affect­ing the mor­tal­i­ty rate of trees and an increase in wood har­vests” accord­ing to the Haut con­seil pour le cli­mat.

“The objec­tives of the SNBC‑2 rely on a larg­er car­bon sink than today to suc­cess­ful­ly achieve car­bon neu­tral­i­ty, stress­es Éti­enne Math­ias. If the sink is weak­er than expect­ed, it means that we’ll have to lim­it GHG emis­sions even more than planned. It’s very com­pli­cat­ed: the remain­ing emis­sions in 2050 will come from agri­cul­ture, which is not con­sid­ered to be very compressible.”

Anaïs Marechal
1Crip­pa, M., Guiz­zar­di, D., Pagani, F., Ban­ja, M., Muntean, M., Schaaf E., Beck­er, W., Mon­for­ti-Fer­rario, F., Quadrel­li, R., Risquez Mar­tin, A., Taghavi-Moharam­li, P., Köykkä, J., Gras­si, G., Rossi, S., Bran­dao De Melo, J., Oom, D., Bran­co, A., San-Miguel, J., Vig­nati, E., GHG emis­sions of all world coun­tries, Pub­li­ca­tions Office of the Euro­pean Union, Lux­em­bourg, 2023, doi:10.2760/953322, JRC134504.
2Canadell, J.G., P.M.S. Mon­teiro, M.H. Cos­ta, L. Cotrim da Cun­ha, P.M. Cox, A.V. Eliseev, S. Hen­son, M. Ishii, S. Jac­card, C. Koven, A. Lohi­la, P.K. Patra, S. Piao, J. Rogelj, S. Syam­pun­gani, S. Zaehle, and K. Zick­feld, 2021: Glob­al Car­bon and oth­er Bio­geo­chem­i­cal Cycles and Feed­backs. In Cli­mate Change 2021: The Phys­i­cal Sci­ence Basis. Con­tri­bu­tion of Work­ing Group I to the Sixth Assess­ment Report of the Inter­gov­ern­men­tal Pan­el on Cli­mate Change [Mas­son-Del­motte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Con­nors, C. Péan, S. Berg­er, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Gold­farb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lon­noy, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. May­cock, T. Water­field, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty Press, Cam­bridge, Unit­ed King­dom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 673–816, doi: 10.1017/9781009157896.007.
3Haut con­seil pour le cli­mat, June 2024, Tenir le cap de la décar­bon­a­tion, pro­téger la pop­u­la­tion, annu­al report 2024.
4Citepa, 2024. Secten report – Emis­sions of green­house gas­es and atmos­pher­ic pol­lu­tants 1990–2023.

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