Countries by Adjusted savings: carbon dioxide damage (% of GNI)
Syria ranks first among 199 countries on adjusted savings: carbon dioxide damage, with CO2 damage equivalent to 9.85% of GNI in 2021. At the other end, Puerto Rico records just 0.08% of GNI. The gap between first and last reflects wide differences in fossil fuel intensity relative to national income.
Ranking 2021
Values shown in %.
Analysis
This metric measures the cost of damage caused by carbon dioxide emissions as a share of Gross National Income. According to the World Bank World Development Indicators (indicator NY.ADJ.DCO2.GN.ZS), it represents the 'cost of damage due to carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use and the manufacture of cement, estimated to be US$40 per ton of CO2 (the unit damage in 2017 US dollars for CO2 emitted in 2020) times the number of tons of CO2 emitted. This indicator is expressed as a percentage of Gross National Income (GNI) which is the total income earned by all residents within an economic territory during a' given period. The unit is percentage of GNI, and a lower value indicates less CO2 damage relative to national income, meaning higher is worse for this indicator. The dataset covers 199 countries using 2021 data, with 93.5% of countries reporting in the latest year and 98.5% providing data from the last seven years. The World Bank identified 34 extreme outliers at the 3-sigma threshold, and the range spans from 0.08% to 9.85%, a spread of over 12,600%.
The top of the ranking is dominated by fossil-fuel-dependent or lower-income economies where CO2 emissions are high relative to GNI. Syria leads at 9.85% (rank 1), followed by Iran at 8.62% (rank 2) and Mongolia at 7.36% (rank 3). Lao PDR (7.23%, rank 4) and Uzbekistan (7.16%, rank 5) round out the top five. Turkmenistan (6.82%, rank 6) and Libya (6.09%, rank 7) also appear in the upper tier. These placements reflect situations where the dollar-value of CO2 damage is large relative to the size of the national economy.
In the middle of the ranking, large economies appear at moderate levels: China sits at rank 40 with 2.75%, India at rank 25 with 3.44%, and the United States at rank 151 with 0.89%. Notably, major Western European economies cluster near the bottom: Germany ranks 169th at 0.63%, France 188th at 0.42%, and the United Kingdom 186th at 0.43%. Sweden ranks 196th at 0.22% and Switzerland 197th at 0.20%. The Democratic Republic of Congo ranks 194th at 0.27%, one of the lowest values despite being a lower-income country, which illustrates that low emissions relative to GNI can arise from low industrial activity rather than high income alone.
Several data limitations apply to this metric. The fixed damage cost of US$40 per ton of CO2 is a single unit value applied uniformly across all countries, which does not account for country-specific vulnerability or actual economic impact of emissions. The metric captures only CO2 from fossil fuels and cement manufacturing and excludes other greenhouse gases and land-use emissions. Reporting reliability varies; 34 extreme outliers were flagged at the 3-sigma threshold, and some country values may reflect data revisions or gaps in underlying emissions or GNI estimates. The indicator measures damage as a share of GNI, so countries with very small economies can appear high-ranked even with modest absolute emissions, while large economies with high absolute emissions may rank lower simply because their GNI is large.
Methodology
Data are drawn from the World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code NY.ADJ.DCO2.GN.ZS, for the reference year 2021. The metric is defined as the 'cost of damage due to carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use and the manufacture of cement, estimated to be US$40 per ton of CO2 (the unit damage in 2017 US dollars for CO2 emitted in 2020) times the number of tons of CO2 emitted. This indicator is expressed as a percentage of Gross National Income (GNI) which is the total income earned by all residents within an economic territory during a' given period. The ranking covers 199 countries. Of these, 186 out of 199 (93.5%) have data from the latest year (2021), and 196 out of 199 (98.5%) have data from within the last seven years. All datapoints are classified as official quality (100%). The World Bank identified 34 extreme outliers using a 3-sigma threshold. The value range runs from 0.08% to 9.85%, representing a spread of over 12,600%. Average year-over-year change across countries is 9.8%. The fixed unit damage cost of US$40 per ton is applied uniformly and does not vary by country or region.