Countries by Methane (CH4) emissions from Building (Energy) (Mt CO2e)
India ranks 1st in methane emissions from the building sector at 37.74 Mt CO2e, followed by China at 32.75 Mt CO2e. At the bottom, several small territories including Gibraltar, Grenada, and the Faroe Islands record values of exactly zero. The 999% spread between the highest and lowest values reflects the enormous variation in building energy use and cooking fuel composition across countries of vastly different sizes and development profiles.
Ranking 2024
Analysis
This metric measures annual methane (CH4) emissions from the building sector, expressed in megatonnes of CO2 equivalent (Mt CO2e). According to the source definition, it covers 'annual emissions of methane (CH4), one of the six Kyoto greenhouse gases (GHG), from the building sector (subsector of the energy sector) including IPCC 2006 codes 1.A.4 Residential and other sectors, 1.A.5 Non-Specified.' Values are standardized using Global Warming Potential (GWP) factors from the IPCC's 5th Assessment Report (AR5). The dataset covers 197 countries, all with data from the last seven years, and 100% of datapoints are classified as official quality. The data year is 2024. The viability check identified 20 extreme outliers at the 3-sigma threshold, and average year-over-year volatility is 12.1%, well within the 50% acceptability threshold.
India (Rank 1, 37.74 Mt CO2e) and China (Rank 2, 32.75 Mt CO2e) are the two largest emitters by a substantial margin. The third-ranked country, Ethiopia (Rank 3, 12.61 Mt CO2e), emits less than a third of India's total. The United States ranks 4th at 9.47 Mt CO2e, and Pakistan ranks 5th at 9.39 Mt CO2e. Nigeria (Rank 6, 8.67 Mt CO2e) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (Rank 7, 7.67 Mt CO2e) represent the highest values in sub-Saharan Africa. Large populations with significant reliance on biomass and other carbon-intensive building energy sources correlate with high absolute emission totals across these top-ranked countries.
Several European countries appear in the top half of the ranking despite relatively small populations and advanced energy infrastructure. Poland ranks 14th at 3.31 Mt CO2e, Germany ranks 16th at 2.87 Mt CO2e, and France ranks 18th at 2.45 Mt CO2e, placing ahead of much larger-population countries such as Indonesia (Rank 40, 1.05 Mt CO2e) and Mexico (Rank 23, 2.11 Mt CO2e). A notable tie appears at Rank 89, where Denmark and Mauritania both record 0.2865 Mt CO2e. South Korea ranks 85th at 0.33 Mt CO2e, while North Korea ranks 38th at 1.16 Mt CO2e, a counterintuitive gap between the two neighboring states. At the lower end, countries such as Singapore (Rank 170, 0.0019 Mt CO2e), Qatar (Rank 168, 0.0023 Mt CO2e), and Saudi Arabia (Rank 147, 0.0153 Mt CO2e) record very low values despite high per-capita energy consumption, suggesting that building sector methane is low when natural gas or electricity rather than biomass dominates residential energy use.
This metric measures absolute total emissions, not per-capita or emissions-intensity figures, so rankings are strongly influenced by country population size. A large country with low per-capita building sector methane may still outrank a smaller country with higher per-capita emissions. Emissions from industrial energy use, transport, and non-building sources are excluded by definition. The IPCC codes covered (1.A.4 and 1.A.5) include residential and other sectors plus non-specified sources, but exclude commercial and industrial facilities classified elsewhere. Reporting reliability may vary across the 197 countries, particularly for nations with limited statistical infrastructure, even though all datapoints are classified as official. The 20 extreme outliers flagged at the 3-sigma threshold may reflect genuine scale differences rather than reporting errors, but users should treat the highest-ranked values with appropriate scrutiny.
Methodology
Data are drawn from the World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code EN.GHG.CH4.BU.MT.CE.AR5, with a reference year of 2024. The metric is defined as 'a measure of annual emissions of methane (CH4), one of the six Kyoto greenhouse gases (GHG), from the building sector (subsector of the energy sector) including IPCC 2006 codes 1.A.4 Residential and other sectors, 1.A.5 Non-Specified. The measure is standardized to carbon dioxide equivalent values using the Global Warming Potential (GWP) factors of IPCC's 5th Assessment Report (AR5).' The dataset covers 197 countries, all with data from within the last seven years (100% recency), and 100% of datapoints meet the official data quality threshold. The value range spans 0.00 to 37.74 Mt CO2e, a spread exceeding 999%. Twenty extreme outliers were identified using a 3-sigma threshold. Average year-over-year volatility is 12.1%, below the 50% concern threshold. No microstates under 1 million population are present in the dataset. Rankings reflect absolute emission totals and should not be used as a proxy for per-capita performance or emissions intensity.