United States and China
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.
The United States emitted 1.8 times as much CO2 per person as China in 2022. China emitted 2.3 times as much CO2 in total as the United States.
| Measure | United States | China |
|---|---|---|
| Totalmillion tonnes | 5,0552nd of 164 | 11,7121st of 164 |
| Per persontonnes | 14.88th of 164 | 8.2224th of 164 |
| Per unit of GDPkg per international dollar (2011 prices, PPP) | 0.25952nd of 164 | 0.43419th of 164 |
Per person over time
CO2 from fossil fuels and industry per person, 1950 to 2024. United States: 16.5 tonnes per person in 1950, 14.2 in 2024, with a high of 22.2 in 1973. China: 0.145 tonnes per person in 1950, 8.66 in 2024, with a high of 8.66 in 2024.
Show the data as a table
| Year | United States, tonnes | China, tonnes |
|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 16.5 | 0.145 |
| 1955 | 16.4 | 0.316 |
| 1960 | 16.1 | 1.22 |
| 1965 | 17.4 | 0.692 |
| 1970 | 20.9 | 0.981 |
| 1975 | 20.1 | 1.29 |
| 1980 | 20.6 | 1.52 |
| 1985 | 18.6 | 1.88 |
| 1990 | 20.3 | 2.15 |
| 1995 | 20.2 | 2.75 |
| 2000 | 21.4 | 2.87 |
| 2005 | 20.7 | 4.49 |
| 2010 | 18.2 | 6.37 |
| 2015 | 16.5 | 7.06 |
| 2020 | 13.8 | 7.64 |
| 2024 | 14.2 | 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.