List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions per capita

This is a list of sovereign states and territories by per capita carbon dioxide emissions{{refn|group=n|Carbon dioxide () is a colourless, odourless and non-poisonous gas formed by combustion of carbon and in the respiration of living organisms and is considered a greenhouse gas.

Emissions means the release of greenhouse gases and/or their precursors into the atmosphere over a specified area and period of time.

Carbon dioxide emissions or ** emissions** are emissions stemming from the burning of fossil fuels and the manufacture of cement; they include carbon dioxide produced during consumption of solid, liquid, and gas fuels as well as gas flaring}} due to certain forms of human activity, based on the EDGAR database created by European Commission. The following table lists the annual per capita emissions estimates (in kilotons of per year) for the year 2023, as well as the change from the year 2000.

The data only considers carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and cement manufacture, but not emissions from land use, land-use change and forestry Over the last 150 years, estimated cumulative emissions from land use and land-use change represent approximately one-third of total cumulative anthropogenic emissions. Emissions from international shipping or bunker fuels are also not included in national figures, which can make a large difference for small countries with important ports.

Measures of territorial-based emissions, also known as production-based emissions, do not account for emissions embedded in global trade, where emissions may be imported or exported in the form of traded goods, as it only reports emissions emitted within geographical boundaries. Accordingly, a proportion of the produced and reported in Asia and Africa is for the production of goods consumed in Europe and North America.

According to the review of the scientific literature conducted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), carbon dioxide is the most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas by warming contribution. The other major anthropogenic greenhouse gases{{refn|group=n|Greenhouse gases (GHG) constitute a group of gases contributing to global warming and climate change.

The Kyoto Protocol, an environmental agreement adopted by many of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1997 to curb global warming, nowadays covers seven greenhouse gases:

• the non-fluorinated gases:
  • carbon dioxide (CO2),
  • methane (CH4),
  • nitrous oxide (N2O),
• the fluorinated gases:
  • hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs),
  • perfluorocarbons (PFCs),
  • sulphur hexafluoride (SF6),
  • nitrogen trifluoride (NF3). Converting them to carbon dioxide (or ) equivalents makes it possible to compare them and to determine their individual and total contributions to global warming.}}) are not included in the following list, nor are humans emissions of water vapor (), the most important greenhouse gases, as they are negligible compared to naturally occurring quantities.

According to Science for Policy report in 2024 by the Joint Research Centre (JRC – the European Commission's science and knowledge service) and International Energy Agency (IEA), in 2023, global GHG emissions primarily consisted of , resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels (73.7%).