Earth Day 2024: Which countries have the highest and lowest carbon footprint?

As Earth Day reminds us, our planet’s health hinges on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2). But which countries are the biggest contributors?

There are two ways to measure a country’s carbon footprint: total emissions and per capita emissions.

Total emissions refers to the total amount of greenhouse gases, typically measured in metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), that a country releases into the atmosphere each year. Countries with the highest total emissions tend to be large and industrialised, with big populations. China, the United States, India, Russia, and Japan are consistently ranked among the top emitters.

Per capita emissions considers a country’s total emissions and divides it by its population. This gives a better picture of a country’s emissions relative to its population size. Here, factors like reliance on fossil fuels and high energy consumption per person play a significant role, as evidenced by the tables below.

Top emitters (total emissions):

The United States Environmental Agency (EPA) has published data for the largest greenhouse gas emissions on the planet. These are:

Top emitters (per capita emissions):

Using this method is much fairer as the top emitters are usually nations with the highest populations, it is inevitable their total emissions would be far higher than a nation much smaller. Breaking nations down per capita paints a very different picture:

Out of the top 10 largest emitters, the US has the highest per capita with 15.96 tCO2. Russia is second with 12.49, while China is well down on both with 8.71.