Which countries emit the most CO2 per person?

Full country ranking

Value: tonnes CO2e per person. The table is shown in its published rank order. Rank always refers to the published highest-first order; exact source ties share a rank.

What the data means

Palau's per-person figure is 33.0 times the covered-country median. This territorial CO2 series excludes land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF); it is not a consumption-footprint ranking or a measure of a resident's personal emissions. Small populations and industrial activity can produce high per-person values.

Methodology, source and licence

One common observation year (2024) across all entries. Starting at 2024, choose the newest common year with at least 10 existing country guides and at least 70% of world population represented. Regional aggregates and places without an existing country guide or same-year population are excluded; missing observations are never estimated. Rates, percentages and values already expressed per person are not divided by population again. Exact source ties share a rank; country names break ties in display order. The 2026 label is the publication edition, not the observation year.

Source definition: Total annual emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), one of the six Kyoto greenhouse gases (GHG), from the agriculture, energy, waste, and industrial sectors, excluding LULUCF, standardized to carbon dioxide equivalent values divided by the economy's population. This measure excludes GHG fluxes caused by Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF), as these fluxes have larger uncertainties.

Original providers: EDGAR (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research) Community GHG Database, Joint Research Centre (JRC) - European Commission, uri: https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/dataset_ghg2024, publisher: JRC European Commission, date published: 2024; International Energy Agency (IEA), uri: https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/dataset_ghg2024, publisher: JRC European Commission, date published: 2024

Source: World Bank — World Development Indicators — EN.GHG.CO2.PC.CE.AR5. CC BY 4.0. Retrieved 2026-10-18. GooferPlaces selected eligible countries, sorted observations, rounded display values and, where stated, calculated population-normalised values. The source organisations do not endorse these rankings.

Download the observations and methodology (JSON). The dated source snapshot is retained as data/rankings/world-bank-wdi/2026-10-18.json. The country universe comprises the 197 existing country guides; territories without a guide and regional aggregates are excluded. Population coverage uses the World Bank world aggregate for the observation year, including places not listed in the table.

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