Indicator Explorer

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Carbon intensity of GDP (kg CO2e per constant 2021 US$ of GDP)

Annual emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), one of the six Kyoto greenhouse gases (GHG), from the agriculture, energy, waste, and industrial sectors, excluding LULUCF divided by the GDP in constant 2021 US$.

EDGAR (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research) Community GHG Database, a collaboration between the European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), the International Energy Agency (IEA), and comprising IEA-EDGAR CO2, EDGAR CH4, EDGAR N2O, EDGAR F-GASES version 8.0, (2023) European Commission, JRC (Datasets). https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/dataset_ghg80

kg CO2e per 2021 constant US$ of GDP

Annual

Weighted average using GDP as weights

Anthropogenic (human-caused) emissions of global greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (NO2) and F-gases, lead to an increase of the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which in turn causes atmospheric warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere (greenhouse gas effect). Atmospheric warming leads to climatic changes causing more frequent and extreme weather events and higher temperatures globally, leading to large impacts across the globe and particularly in developing countries that often have a limited means to adapt and build resilience. The international scientific community has warned that emissions need to decline to net zero by the middle of the 21st century to limit global warming to well below a 2deg C increase and help avoid the most consequential climate change impacts. Climate change is having a disproportionate impact on developing countries and if unabated will not only reverse past development progress and hinder poverty reduction but will also make future development more costly. Country level assessments of the potential climate change impacts on specific developing countries, performed as part of the World Bank’s Country Climate and Development Reports (CCDRs), show that climate change will have a significant impact on developing countries’ economies, ranging from about 0.5% of GDP for higher income developing countries to over 13% for the lowest income developing countries. The costs of partial adaptation to these changes will be significant as well -- ranging between 1 and 10% of developing countries’ GDP.

Global GHG emissions are currently not directly measurable, but approaches for their estimation exist, and numerous sources exist to supply data for this indicator. Reputable scientific organizations produce these data for use for research, policy analysis, climate negotiations, and broader public communications. The estimated accuracy from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes are quite high, as quantities of fossil fuels and other emissive materials (such as cement and steel) produced are well known. For these sectors, emissions estimates are roughly accurate to within 10% when aggregated to the global level and between 4% and 35% at the country level (Crippa et al., 2023). For non- combustion and non- industrial process emissions, the accuracy is lower. Agricultural emissions, for example, depend upon many factors including the type of crops grown and livestock raised, specific agricultural practices, and other climate and non-climate factors. For these emissions, the accuracy is lower—around 30% for CH4 and fluorinated gases (HFCs, PFCs, and SF6).

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