The countries that produce the most CO2 emissions

Watch: Climate Report - Code red for humanity

Humans are unequivocally driving global warming as countries emit increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, a UN report has warned.

The assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released on Monday, has painted a stark picture of the impact humans are having through activities such as burning fossil fuels.

The report said in the next two decades the world will reach or exceed temperature rises of 1.5C - a limit countries have pledged to try and keep in order to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.

One of the report’s lead authors, Dr Tamsin Edwards from King’s College London, said: “Unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, the 1.5C target will be beyond reach.”

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Governments now face even more pressure to ramp up efforts to cut emissions ahead of the international Cop26 climate talks in Glasgow in November.

Which countries produce the most CO2 emissions?

China produces by far the biggest amount of CO2 emissions compared to any other country in the world, according to figures from the Global Carbon Project, compiled by Our World in Data.

Almost a third of the 36.44 billion tonnes of CO2 emitted globally came from China in 2019 - the most recent year for which full data is available.

China’s emissions soared from 3.34 billion tonnes in 2000 to 10.17 billion in 2019.

Besides China, the top five CO2 emitters in the last 20 years have also included Japan, India and Russia.

In September 2020, President Xi Jinping announced that China would peak its CO2 emissions before 2030 and achieve “carbon neutrality” before 2060.

A study published in Science found that the 1.5C mark would require China’s fossil fuel consumption to be “dramatically reduced”.

But it also found China’s pledge is largely consistent with the Paris Agreement aim of limiting global warming to 1.5C.

How have emissions changed in the last 100 years?

Global emissions have soared from 1.95 billion tonnes in 1900 to 36.44 billion tonnes in 2019.

The countries that are emitting the most CO2 in the world also changed drastically during the 20th Century.

The US was the biggest emitter in 1900, followed by the UK, Germany, France and Poland.

But by the 1950s this had changed as Russia’s emissions began to grow, knocking Poland out of the worst five emitters.

In 2000, China, India and Japan became the highest emitters alongside the US and Russia.

By 2019, China had overtaken the US as the biggest CO2 emitter in the world as its economy boomed.

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