CO2 per Capita
CO2 per Capita by country
Commentary
Notable countries
Because lower is better, the best-performing countries are the very low emitters at the top of the ranking, led by the Democratic Republic of the Congo at 0.04 t CO2/cap, followed by Somalia at 0.05 and Burundi at 0.06. The highest per-capita emitters are concentrated at the bottom, especially Palau at 62.59, Qatar at 43.55, and Kuwait at 24.9. A striking pattern is that all of the 10 lowest-emitting countries are in Africa, while several of the highest-emitting countries are in Asia and North America.
Regional trends
Africa has by far the lowest continental average at 1.266 t CO2/cap, well below South America at 2.783 and North America at 3.735. Europe sits higher at 5.646, while Asia reaches 7.016 and Oceania records the highest regional average at 9.355. Overall, the regional averages show a clear gap between Africa and the rest of the world, with Oceania and Asia standing out on the high side.
Data source
The figures come from EDGAR 2023 and are measured in tonnes of CO2 per person (t CO2/cap). The dataset covers 193 countries. A key caveat is that this is a per-capita measure, so it reflects emissions relative to population rather than total national emissions.
Interpretation
Higher values mean more CO2 emitted per person, so lower values indicate a smaller per-capita carbon footprint. The global mean is 4.548 t CO2/cap, but the very large spread in the data, from 0.04 to 62.59, shows how uneven emissions are across countries. The results suggest that per-capita emissions are extremely low in many African countries, while a small group of countries records exceptionally high levels.