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Total greenhouse gas emissions per capita

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CO2 & Greenhouse Gas Emissions

About this data

Total greenhouse gas emissions per capita
Emissions are measured in tonnes of per person.
Source
Climate Watch (2023); Population based on various sources (2023) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
October 31, 2023
Next expected update
December 2024
Date range
1990–2020
Unit
tonnes

Explore charts that include this data

Per capita GHG emissions vs. per capita CO₂ emissions

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

Climate Watch Historical Emissions data contains sector-level greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data for 194 countries and the European Union for the period 1990-2020, including emissions of the six major GHGs from most major sources and sinks. Non-CO₂ emissions are expressed in CO₂ equivalents using 100-year global warming potential values from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report.

More information about their data sources and methodology can be found in their FAQ page. Specifically, the definitions of all Climate Watch data sectors and their methodology are explained in this document.

Retrieved on
October 31, 2023
Retrieved from
https://www.climatewatchdata.org/data-explorer/historical-emissions
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Climate Watch. 2022. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute (WRI). Available online at: https://www.climatewatchdata.org
Climate Watch data are derived from several sources.

    

  • Data on land-Use change and forestry, and agriculture, are sourced from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAOSTAT Emissions Database.
    • 

  • Data on greenhouse gas emissions from fuel combustion are sourced from the OECD/IEA.
    •

Our World in Data builds and maintains a long-run dataset on population by country, region, and for the world, based on various sources.

You can find more information on these sources and how our time series is constructed on this page: https://ourworldindata.org/population-sources

Retrieved on
March 31, 2023
Retrieved from
https://ourworldindata.org/population-sources
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
The long-run data on population is based on various sources, described on this page: https://ourworldindata.org/population-sources

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Total greenhouse gas emissions per capita”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado and Max Roser (2023) - “CO₂ and Greenhouse Gas Emissions”. Data adapted from Climate Watch, Various sources. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-greenhouse-gas-emissions-per-capita [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Climate Watch (2023); Population based on various sources (2023) – with major processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

Climate Watch (2023); Population based on various sources (2023) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Total greenhouse gas emissions per capita” [dataset]. Climate Watch, “Greenhouse gas emissions by sector”; Various sources, “Population” [original data]. Retrieved November 22, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-greenhouse-gas-emissions-per-capita