2.3.3 Total carbon footprints
The picture of carbon footprints changes again when you consider total CO2 emissions for different countries rather than emissions per person. Table 3 shows that by 2011 China had become by far the greatest total emitter of CO2, followed by the USA and India.
Table 3 Total territorial carbon dioxide emissions for selected countries (CDIAC, 2015; Global Carbon Atlas, 2023)
| Country | Total CO2 (2011), million tonnes per year (rounded) | Total CO2 (2023 est.), million tonnes per year (rounded) |
| China | 9020 | 11397 |
| United States | 5306 | 5057 |
| India | 2074 | 2830 |
| Russian Federation | 1808 | 1652 |
| Japan | 1188 | 1054 |
| Germany | 730 | 666 |
| Saudi Arabia | 520 | 663 |
| South Africa | 477 | 404 |
| United Kingdom | 448 | 319 |
| Brazil | 439 | 483 |
| Australia | 369 | 392 |
| France | 339 | 298 |
| Turkey | 321 | 436 |
| Thailand | 303 | 271 |
| Egypt | 221 | 259 |
| Pakistan | 164 | 200 |
| Nigeria | 88.0 | 129 |
| Romania | 84.8 | 74 |
| Israel | 69.5 | 56 |
| Sweden | 52.1 | 38 |
| Ireland | 36.1 | 39 |
| Uganda | 3.8 | 6.0 |
| World total | 34 437 | 37 150 |
Note: the CO2 emissions shown in Tables 1 and 3 are based on from burning fossil fuels, cement manufacture and gas flaring.
Figure 9 shows more of the same information updated using estimations for 2022, when China, the USA and India combined emitted half of the world’s CO2.
Figure 12 Estimated total territorial CO2 emissions in 2022 (Global Carbon Atlas, 2023)
OpenLearn - Environment: treading lightly on the Earth
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