Saudi Arabia and Iran
CO2 from fossil fuels and industry produced in each country (territorial emissions; land-use change is not included), for 2022, the latest year with total, per-person and per-GDP figures for at least 150 countries. Ranks are among those 164 countries.
Saudi Arabia emitted 2.4 times as much CO2 per person as Iran in 2022. Iran emitted 1.2 times as much CO2 in total as Saudi Arabia.
| Measure | Saudi Arabia | Iran |
|---|---|---|
| Totalmillion tonnes | 6679th of 164 | 7676th of 164 |
| Per persontonnes | 20.75th of 164 | 8.5722nd of 164 |
| Per unit of GDPkg per international dollar (2011 prices, PPP) | 0.36628th of 164 | 0.48813th of 164 |
Per person over time
CO2 from fossil fuels and industry per person, 1950 to 2024. Saudi Arabia: 3.02 tonnes per person in 1950, 20.4 in 2024, with a high of 28.0 in 1980. Iran: 0.581 tonnes per person in 1950, 8.66 in 2024, with a high of 8.81 in 2021.
Show the data as a table
| Year | Saudi Arabia, tonnes | Iran, tonnes |
|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 3.02 | 0.581 |
| 1955 | 1.04 | 0.846 |
| 1960 | 1.10 | 1.74 |
| 1965 | 1.44 | 2.15 |
| 1970 | 12.7 | 3.15 |
| 1975 | 18.3 | 4.12 |
| 1980 | 28.0 | 3.03 |
| 1985 | 21.1 | 3.24 |
| 1990 | 17.1 | 3.62 |
| 1995 | 20.7 | 4.35 |
| 2000 | 19.1 | 5.53 |
| 2005 | 20.1 | 6.50 |
| 2010 | 22.1 | 7.25 |
| 2015 | 20.8 | 7.77 |
| 2020 | 21.1 | 8.50 |
| 2024 | 20.4 | 8.66 |
Sources and licences
- Our World in Data, CO2 and Greenhouse Gas Emissions (owid-co2-data.csv): countries from 1950. Our World in Data, CO2 and Greenhouse Gas Emissions (ourworldindata.org/co2-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions), based on the Global Carbon Budget (2025), the Maddison Project Database 2023 (Bolt and van Zanden) and OWID's population series. Retrieved 16 October 2026. CC BY 4.0 for Our World in Data's own work; data produced by third parties keeps its source's terms (OWID's co2-data README). CO2: Global Carbon Budget (2025); GDP: Maddison Project Database 2023; population: OWID's population series. Terms, full data file. Changes: Countries only (rows with a three-letter ISO code), years from 1950, and the columns iso_code, country, year, population, co2, co2_per_capita, co2_per_gdp and the CO2 by source (coal, oil, gas, cement, flaring, other industry); values and row order as published; LF line endings.
Our chart is licensed CC BY 4.0: share it with a credit and a link. The data keep their sources' terms, and no endorsement is implied.