The interactive map shows the contributions of each country to the rise in global mean surface temperature (GMST) for different periods since 1851, as reported by Jones et al. (2023a) and updated in Jones et al. (2023b).

National contributions are assessed for three different greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) – as well as for the sum across the three gases.

National contributions are also assessed for two emissions sectors – fossil fuel emissions and land use change emissions – as well as the sum of those sectors.

The "EU27" toggle can be used to either aggregate or disaggregate the contributions from EU27 member states.

Method summary

Warming caused by emissions in each country is calculated following the methods presented by Jones et al. (2023a). Briefly:

• Warming caused by each country’s CO₂ emissions is calculated using the transient climate response to cumulative CO₂ emissions (TCRE) value of 1.65°C per 1000 PgC^a.
• Warming caused by each country’s CH₄ emissions is calculated by applying the TCRE value to the calculated CO₂-equivalent emissions. CO₂-equivalent emissions are calculated over a 100-year time horizon using the global warming potential star (GWP*) approach^b,c.
• Warming caused by each country’s N₂O emissions is calculated by applying the TCRE value to the calculated CO₂-equivalent emissions. CO₂-equivalent emissions are calculated over a 100-year time horizon using the global warming potential (GWP) approach^b.

^aThe TCRE value of 1.65°C per 1000 PgC is as reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6; Candadell et al. 2021).

^bGWP values are as reported by the IPCC (Forster et al. 2021): 29.8 for CH₄ from fossil fuels, 27.2 for CH₄ from land use change, and 273 for N₂O (all sources).

^cThe GWP* method is a modification of the GWP method that adjusts for the short atmospheric lifetime of CH₄. GWP* does not apply to N₂O because it, like CO₂, is a long-lived greenhouse gas.

Data sources

The source of data for CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels is Andrew and Peters (2023), as used in the Global Carbon Budget (Friedlingstein et al. 2023). The source of data for CO₂ emissions from land use change is the Global Carbon Budget (Friedlingstein et al. 2023).

The source of data for CH₄ and N₂O emissions from both the fossil fuel and land use change sectors derive from the Potsdam Realtime Integrated Model for probabilistic Assessment of emissions Paths dataset (PRIMAP-hist) dataset (Gütschow et al. 2023).

Note: All emissions data represent territorial emissions and exclude emissions embodied in trade.

Please cite as:

Jones, M. W., Peters, G. P., Gasser, T., Andrew, R. M., Schwingshackl, C., Gütschow, J., Houghton, R. A., Friedlingstein, P., Pongratz, J., Le Quéré, C. (2023a). National contributions to climate change due to historical emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide since 1850, Scientific Data, 10(155), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-02041-1.

Jones, M. W., Peters, G. P., Gasser, T., Andrew, R. M., Schwingshackl, C., Gütschow, J., Houghton, R. A., Friedlingstein, P., Pongratz, J., Le Quéré, C. (2023b). National contributions to climate change due to historical emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide since 1850 [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10839859.

References to emission data sources:

Andrew, R. M., Peters, G. P. (2023). The Global Carbon Project's fossil CO₂ emissions dataset. Zenodo. https://zenodo.org/records/10177738.

Friedlingstein, P., et al. (2023). Global Carbon Budget 2023. Earth System Science Data, 15, 5301–5369, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-5301-2023.

Gütschow, J., Pflüger, M., Busch, D. (2023). The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series v2.5.1 (1750-2022). Zenodo. https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.4479171.

Forster, P., et al. (2021). The Earth's Energy Budget, Climate Feedbacks, and Climate Sensitivity. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S. L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M. I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T. K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 923–1054, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157896.009.

Canadell, J. G. et al. (2021). Global Carbon and other Biogeochemical Cycles and Feedbacks. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S. L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M. I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T. K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 673–816, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157896.007.