CO₂ emissions per capita: source and method

Citation

Global Carbon Budget (2025); Population based on various sources (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “CO₂ emissions per capita” [dataset]. Global Carbon Project, “Global Carbon Budget v15”; Various sources, “Population” [original data].

What it measures

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from burning fossil fuels and industrial processes. This includes emissions from transport, electricity generation, and heating, but not land-use change. Unit: tonnes per person.

How the data were processed

Global emissions are converted from tonnes of carbon to tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO₂) using a factor of 3.664. This is the conversion factor recommended by the Global Carbon Project. It reflects that one tonne of carbon, when fully oxidized, forms 3.664 tonnes of CO₂, based on the relative molecular weights of carbon and oxygen in CO₂.

Emissions from the 1991 Kuwaiti oil fires are included in Kuwait's emissions for that year.- To calculate CO₂ emissions per capita, we divide the original data by a country's estimated population. These estimates come from our population dataset based on multiple sources.

Where it was taken from

Our World in Data publishes its data under the Creative Commons BY 4.0 licence; data produced by third parties keep their own licence, given in the full metadata. How this site takes its figures · All co₂ emissions per capita figures.