Countries by Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions excluding LULUCF per capita (t CO2e/capita)
Palau ranks first in CO2 emissions per capita at 82.84 t CO2e per capita, more than four times the value of second-ranked Qatar at 47.33 t CO2e per capita. At the other end, Nauru and Tuvalu both record 0.00 t CO2e per capita, sharing rank 202. The gap between the highest and lowest values spans more than 82 tonnes per person.
Ranking 2024
Values shown in per capita.
Analysis
This metric measures total annual emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), one of the six Kyoto greenhouse gases (GHG), from the agriculture, energy, waste, and industrial sectors, excluding LULUCF, standardized to carbon dioxide equivalent values divided by the economy's population. This measure excludes GHG fluxes caused by Land Use Change Land Use and Forestry (LULUCF), as these fluxes have larger uncertainties. The unit is tonnes of CO2 equivalent per capita per year. Higher values indicate more emissions per person. The dataset covers 203 countries, all with data from the last seven years, and all datapoints are classified as official quality. The indicator code is EN.GHG.CO2.PC.CE.AR5, sourced from the World Bank World Development Indicators for the data year 2024. The viability checks identified 21 extreme outliers at the 3-sigma threshold, and the value range spans 0.00 to 82.84, a spread exceeding 999 percent.
The top of the ranking is dominated by small, fossil-fuel-intensive, or hydrocarbon-producing economies. Palau (rank 1, 82.84 t CO2e per capita) sits far above all others. Qatar (rank 2, 47.33) and Bahrain (rank 3, 23.90) follow, alongside Kuwait (rank 4, 23.67), Brunei Darussalam (rank 5, 20.24), and Trinidad and Tobago (rank 6, 19.58). Gulf states Oman (rank 7, 18.65), Saudi Arabia (rank 8, 18.48), and the United Arab Emirates (rank 9, 18.26) round out the top ten alongside New Caledonia (rank 10, 17.08). Among larger economies, Australia (rank 12, 14.10), Canada (rank 13, 14.00), the Russian Federation (rank 14, 14.00), and the United States (rank 15, 13.62) record the highest per capita values, all above 13 t CO2e per capita.
In the middle of the ranking, major economies such as China (rank 22, 9.32) and Germany (rank 35, 6.94) sit well apart despite both being large industrial nations. India (rank 111, 2.17) falls in the lower half despite its large absolute emissions, reflecting its high population. Several lower-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa occupy the bottom of the ranking: Ethiopia (rank 187, 0.15), Madagascar (rank 188, 0.15), Chad (rank 189, 0.14), Niger (rank 190, 0.12), Burundi (rank 191, 0.07), and the Central African Republic (rank 192, 0.06) all record values below 0.10 t CO2e per capita. A counterintuitive placement is the Faroe Islands (rank 195, 0.04), which records a lower per capita value than Somalia (rank 194, 0.046), while several Pacific territories including Guam (rank 200, 0.002) and Micronesia (rank 201, 0.002) post near-zero values despite being separate entries from their administering nations.
This metric excludes LULUCF fluxes, which means countries with significant deforestation or afforestation activity will appear differently here than in metrics that include land use emissions or removals. The exclusion is deliberate, as LULUCF data carries larger uncertainties, but it means the ranking does not capture the full greenhouse gas impact of land-use change. Per capita figures can be heavily influenced by population size: a small country with even modest total emissions can rank very high, as illustrated by Palau at rank 1. Conversely, highly populous countries with large absolute emissions may rank lower per capita. Territorial emissions are attributed to the economy where they occur, so imported goods and international shipping or aviation may not be fully reflected. All 203 datapoints are classified as official, but the presence of 21 extreme outliers at the 3-sigma threshold suggests that some values warrant careful interpretation, particularly for small territories.
Methodology
Rankings are based on the World Bank World Development Indicators indicator EN.GHG.CO2.PC.CE.AR5 for the data year 2024. The metric is defined as: total annual emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), one of the six Kyoto greenhouse gases (GHG), from the agriculture, energy, waste, and industrial sectors, excluding LULUCF, standardized to carbon dioxide equivalent values divided by the economy's population. This measure excludes GHG fluxes caused by Land Use Change Land Use and Forestry (LULUCF), as these fluxes have larger uncertainties. The dataset covers 203 countries, all of which have data from within the last seven years (100% recency) and all datapoints are classified as official quality (100%). The value range runs from 0.00 to 82.84 t CO2e per capita, a spread of over 999%. Viability checks identified 21 extreme outliers at the 3-sigma threshold. Average year-over-year change across the dataset is 6.2%, well within the 50% volatility threshold. Higher values indicate more CO2 emissions per person and are treated as higher-ranked in this index.