China Research

Currently, the climate conference of the UN is taking place in Brazil, unfortunately with limited involvement of several leading advanced countries. Particularly President Donald Trump has been stepping beside or even behind. Still, China, the U.S. and India are the main global CO₂ polluters. Without strong commitment from these three countries, decisive global progress in the fight for a better environment cannot be achieved. However, this should mean all the same that better environmental conditions should be created in all emerging markets.

Many emerging countries among the top 30 polluters

According to global statistics, one still can find China clearly in the global lead of CO₂ pollution in percent before the United States, India, Russia, Japan and Iran. Despite quite some progress in recent years, China’s CO₂ pollution remains almost three times higher than the correspondent number for the United States and more than four times higher than India’s ratio (see https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/co2-emissions-by-country).

CO₂ pollution by country, global share in % in 2023  (and share of pollution per capita)

 1      China                    33.98           (9.2)

 2       U.S.                       12.00           (13.8)

 3       India                        7.57           (2.1)

 4      Russia                     5.30            (14.4)

 5      Japan                       2.42            (7.5)

 6      Iran                           2               (9.1)

 7      Indonesia              1.73             (2.4)

 8      Saudi Arabia        1.60             (17.1)

 9      Germany               1.49            (7.1)

10     Korea                      1.47           (11.0)

11     Canada

12     Mexico 

13     Brazil

14     Turkey

15     South Africa

16     Vietnam 

21     Malaysia

24     Thailand

25     Egypt

26     Kazakhstan

27     UAE

28     Pakistan

29     Iraq

30     Argentina  

When it comes to CO₂ pollution per capita, the picture looks more favorable for China compared to the U.S. I could hear this as a strongly positive argument on many occasions when I still visited China very frequently. However, my conclusion was from the very beginning that pollution per capita had to be regarded as a bumpy measurement since pollution never has national borders. I could hear this point of view with obviously strong passion during my visits on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa which had been – and still is – particularly affected by Chinese pollution.

Hubert Fromlet
Affiliate Professor at the School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University