Emission levels

by Katherine
(Marrickville)

What is Australia's carbon emissions level and how does this compare to other countries? Thanks for the question Katherine.

Answer from Climate-change-wisdom
In 2008 Australia emitted a little under 400 million tCO2e of greenhouse gases from human activity (other than land use change).

tCO2e is tons of carbon dioxide equivalents, the standard unit for recording how much carbon is released. Land use change we leave out as it is a big source of emissions but complex to calculate.

400 million tCO2e is 1.3% of the global total making Australia 16th of 200 countries, producing a little less than Indonesia and a little more than Brazil. China leads the way at 23% of the total and the US at 18%.

Australia is 50th country in the world by population size with only 0.33% of the total.

So if you look at emissions per person, Australia ranks 5th in the world on the 2008 numbers, at roughly 20 tCO2e each.

CCW
July 2011