The Climate Watch project has analyzed global statistics on carbon emissions for 2022 – this is the latest available data. Our country is ranked 138th in the world out of 192.
Top-ranked China accounts for 26% of the world’s total emissions, amounting to 12.7 billion tons of CO2 equivalent in 2022. China’s population at that time was 1.4 billion.
In second place is the US, which is responsible for another 11.5% of all emissions, with a population of 333 million.
These two countries together account for 38% of the world’s emissions. This is slightly less than their share of the world economy (43%) and much more than their share of world population (22%).
On a per capita basis, the U.S. produces almost twice as much emissions per person (14 tCO2e) as China (8 tCO2e).
Most of the top 10 emitters are also the countries with the largest populations in the world, with the exception of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Canada.
These include India (3rd place), Russia (4th place), Brazil (5th place), etc. Ukraine in 44th place (0.35%) and Romania in 69th place (0.16%).
Another conclusion of the analysts is that middle-income countries (according to the World Bank classification) are responsible for the largest share of emissions.
This is because, first, more countries are in the middle-income group than in the high- or low-income categories. And second, many of these middle-income countries have large, growing populations, which increases aggregate emissions.
Another thing to consider is that most of the industries and businesses with high emissions have moved from high-income countries to middle- and low-income countries.
Thus, high-income countries are able to maintain their consumption levels while emissions from the production of the goods they consume are accounted for elsewhere.
This last point is particularly important when it comes to the math of emissions. In fact, when they are accounted for based on per capita consumption, high-income countries are still responsible for a significant portion of the world’s carbon emissions.
