Countries by Nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions (total) excluding LULUCF (Mt CO2e)
China leads all 203 ranked countries in nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions excluding LULUCF, recording 423.62 Mt CO2e, more than the combined totals of second-ranked India (283.50 Mt CO2e) and third-ranked United States (215.60 Mt CO2e). At the other end, Nauru sits at rank 203 with just 0.0005 Mt CO2e, placing the range at over 84 million percent between first and last. That gap reflects the profound differences in agricultural scale, population size, and industrial activity across the 203 countries covered.
Ranking 2024
Analysis
This metric measures annual nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from the agriculture, energy, waste, and industrial sectors, excluding land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF). Per the source definition, it is 'a measure of annual emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O), one of the six Kyoto greenhouse gases (GHG), from the agriculture, energy, waste, and industrial sectors, excluding LULUCF. The measure is standardized to carbon dioxide equivalent values using the Global Warming Potential (GWP) factors of IPCC's 5th Assessment Report (AR5).' Values are expressed in megatonnes of CO2 equivalent (Mt CO2e), with higher values indicating greater absolute emissions. The dataset covers 203 countries, all with data from the last seven years, and 100% of datapoints are classified as official quality. The indicator code is EN.GHG.N2O.MT.CE.AR5, sourced from the World Bank World Development Indicators for data year 2024. The viability checks identified 40 extreme outliers at the 3-sigma threshold, driven largely by the enormous spread between the largest and smallest emitters.
The top of the ranking is dominated by large agricultural producers and populous nations. China (rank 1, 423.62 Mt CO2e) records nearly 1.5 times the emissions of second-ranked India (283.50 Mt CO2e). The United States (rank 3, 215.60 Mt CO2e) and Brazil (rank 4, 169.13 Mt CO2e) follow, with Brazil's high placement reflecting its extensive livestock sector. Russia (rank 5, 87.53 Mt CO2e) and Indonesia (rank 6, 64.15 Mt CO2e) round out the top six. Pakistan (rank 7, 59.45 Mt CO2e) and Australia (rank 8, 50.81 Mt CO2e) appear ahead of several larger economies, consistent with their significant agricultural outputs. Ethiopia (rank 9, 41.70 Mt CO2e) is the highest-ranked sub-Saharan African country, ahead of Canada (rank 10, 40.89 Mt CO2e), reflecting large livestock populations relative to industrial output.
Several counterintuitive placements appear in the mid-tier rankings. Belarus (rank 34, 14.79 Mt CO2e) ranks ahead of South Korea (rank 36, 13.14 Mt CO2e) and Italy (rank 38, 12.93 Mt CO2e), despite being a far smaller economy, which points to the weight of agricultural activity in this metric. Mongolia (rank 39, 12.20 Mt CO2e) ranks ahead of Uganda (rank 40, 10.85 Mt CO2e) and Saudi Arabia (rank 43, 10.25 Mt CO2e), consistent with its large livestock-to-population ratio. Ireland (rank 50, 8.32 Mt CO2e) ranks higher than the Netherlands (rank 51, 7.91 Mt CO2e) and Malaysia (rank 55, 7.45 Mt CO2e), reflecting Ireland's cattle-intensive agriculture. At the lower end of the ranking, small island states and territories cluster below 0.05 Mt CO2e, with Tuvalu (rank 200, 0.0015 Mt CO2e), Marshall Islands (rank 201, 0.0013 Mt CO2e), Northern Mariana Islands (rank 202, 0.0012 Mt CO2e), and Nauru (rank 203, 0.0005 Mt CO2e) recording the smallest values. Two countries share rank 189: Cayman Islands and Gibraltar, each at 0.0085 Mt CO2e.
This metric captures only absolute total emissions and does not account for population size, economic output, or emissions intensity per unit of agricultural production. A country with a large population or extensive farmland will rank higher regardless of efficiency. The exclusion of LULUCF means that land-use emissions and carbon sequestration from forests are not reflected, which can be material for countries with significant land-use change. Reporting reliability may vary across the 203 countries, as methodologies for estimating agricultural N2O emissions, particularly from soil management and livestock enteric fermentation, depend on national inventory quality. All 203 countries show data classified as official, but estimation approaches and update frequencies can differ, and the presence of 40 extreme outliers at the 3-sigma threshold underscores the high variance inherent in comparing microstates to continental-scale economies on an absolute basis.
Methodology
The rankings are based on the World Bank World Development Indicators indicator EN.GHG.N2O.MT.CE.AR5, representing annual nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions excluding LULUCF in megatonnes of CO2 equivalent (Mt CO2e), standardized using Global Warming Potential factors from the IPCC's 5th Assessment Report (AR5). Per the source definition, this is 'a measure of annual emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O), one of the six Kyoto greenhouse gases (GHG), from the agriculture, energy, waste, and industrial sectors, excluding LULUCF. 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 203 countries, all meeting the recency threshold with data from the last seven years (data year 2024), and 100% of datapoints are classified as official quality, exceeding the 70% threshold. The metric ranks countries from highest to lowest absolute emissions (higher is ranked better in this reference). Viability checks flagged 40 extreme outliers at the 3-sigma threshold, consistent with the dataset's 84,723,400% spread between minimum (0.0005 Mt CO2e, Nauru) and maximum (423.62 Mt CO2e, China). Average year-over-year change across the dataset is 4.0%, well below the 50% volatility threshold, indicating stable reporting.