Who is actually emitting
Global averages hide the only fact that matters for who should act first: emissions are extraordinarily unevenly distributed. The gap between the richest and poorest countries is wider than the gap between any two decades of history on this site.
Emissions per person, by income group
Countries grouped by the World Bank's income classification. The bar for low-income countries is not a rounding error — it is 0.27 tonnes a person, against roughly ten for the high-income group.
Share of emissions against share of people
The same four groups, shown twice: what fraction of humanity each contains, and what fraction of emissions it produces. If responsibility were evenly spread, the two bars in each pair would match.
Where the emissions are counted matters
A country can lower its own figure by importing the things it used to make. Consumption-based accounting follows emissions to whoever consumes the product, which is the fairer comparison and generally the less flattering one for wealthy economies.
What this does and does not show
- It is national, not personal. These are country averages. Within every country the spread is large again — a national average tells you nothing about any individual living in it, and this page should not be read as though it does.
- Income groups are the World Bank's, and they move. Countries are reclassified as economies grow, so a group's total can shift without any real-world emissions changing.
- Consumption figures lag. They require modelling global trade flows, so they arrive a year or two after territorial figures. Each row here carries its own year rather than being aligned to a common one.
- Historical responsibility is a separate question. This page is about emissions now. Cumulative emissions since 1850 are distributed even more unevenly, and they are what the atmosphere actually responds to.