In March 2023, the World Resources Institute (WRI) updated its list of top greenhouse gas (GHG) emitting nations. Here are some of the WRI’s findings:
According to the WRI report, the top three emitter nations (China, the US, and India) contribute 42.6% of total global GHG emissions.
The bottom 100 nations contribute only 2.9%.
The energy sector contributed 76% of global GHG emissions in 2019.
Though energy emissions have increased by 61.9% since 1990, their increase has slowed to 4.4% over the past five years.
Industrial emissions, however—the third largest contributor by sector—have increased by 203% since 1990.
Though they have increased their total emissions since 1990, the US, EU, Russia, and Japan have “peaked” their per capita emissions since then.
Global carbon dioxide emission growth has slowed from 2013 to 2019 as the global economy grew during the same period, with twenty-one countries proving that decoupling emissions from economic growth is possible.
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