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Data Library

Who Emits the World's CO₂

Total CO₂ emissions across six major economies, 2024

Unit
Megatonnes CO₂ (Mt) · share of six
Frequency
Annual snapshot
Coverage
2024
Evidence Quality
High

Total CO₂ across six major economies in 2024 — China alone emits more than the other five combined.

World Bank WDI · EN.GHG.CO2.MT.CE.AR5 (total CO₂ emissions, Mt)

Rectangle area = total CO₂ emissions (Mt), 2024 · share of the six-economy total

Shares are of these six economies' combined emissions, not of the world.

01

Question

Among six of the world's largest economies, how lopsided is the distribution of CO₂ — and how far ahead is China?

02

Evidence

Each rectangle is one economy, sized by its 2024 territorial CO₂ in megatonnes. The share label is of the six-economy total (about 22,950 Mt), not of global emissions — these six are a curated set, not the world.

03

Observation

Read the largest blocks first — area is share of the whole.

Area is proportional to total emissions, so read the relative sizes of the tiles. The colour ramp reinforces magnitude (darkest is largest) and skips its mid-tones to keep every label legible, so the step from pale to dark tiles is not a break in the data; every share is of these six economies, not the world.

04

Assessment

  • China's tile dwarfs the rest: at about 13,125 Mt (2024) it is roughly 57% of the six-economy total and alone emits more than the other five combined (about 9,830 Mt).
  • The United States is a distant second at about 4,632 Mt (roughly 20%) — close to a third of China's level, and the only other economy above the 3,000 Mt mark alongside India.
  • The bottom three — Japan (about 972 Mt), Germany (about 580 Mt) and Brazil (about 492 Mt) — together make up under 9% of the six-economy total; Brazil is the smallest emitter here.
05

Advantage