Russia, U.S. Are High Per Capita Polluters

Of the world’s top emissions producers, Russia and the United States emit the highest per capita emissions. According to data from the UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report 2024, Russia produced 19 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tC02e) per person in 2023, closely followed by the U.S. with 18 tCO2e. China produced nearly half that at 11 tCO2e per capita.

When looking at total emissions, then China was the biggest single-country emitter of GHGs in 2023 at 16,000 MtCO2e, accounting for 30 percent of global emissions. This is up 5.2 percent from 2022. The U.S. is the second biggest emitter at 5,970 MtCO2e in total, having accounted for 11 percent of the global total last year (-1.4 percent since 2022). India, in third place, accounted for eight percent of the global total at 4,410 MtCO2e (+6.1 percent from 2022). 

As this chart shows, GHG emissions across the G20 members increased by 1.8 percent between 2022 and 2023, accounting for 77 percent of global emissions. The UNEP highlights that if all 55 African Union countries were to be added to the G20 nations, more than doubling the number of countries from 44 to 99, total emissions would only increase by five percentage points. These figures hit home the wide disparities that exist in emissions output globally. The least developed countries group consists of 47 countries and yet it only accounts for three percent of global emissions.

Data on CO2 emissions specifically, which are just one type of GHG, shows that a number of other countries not highlighted in this roundup produce even higher levels of emissions. As Katharina Buchholz details, several countries on the Arabian peninsula are particularly high polluters per capita, including Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.