China represented 29.51% of the European Commission’s 2025 estimate of 54.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, excluding emissions and removals from land use, land-use change and forestry; global emissions rose 0.7% from 2024.
The Commission’s Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) put China’s emissions at 15.981 billion metric tons. The United States followed at 6.018 billion metric tons and India at 4.508 billion. The European Union’s 27 members together accounted for 3.127 billion metric tons, or 5.78%. Including the land-use categories would raise the global estimate to 55.0 billion metric tons.
Emissions moved in different directions among the three largest country emitters. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre said U.S. emissions rose 2.2% in 2025, China’s increased 0.1% and India’s fell 0.2%.
A separate breakdown using an earlier EDGAR release puts electricity and heat generation first among sectors in 2024. Ireland’s Parliamentary Budget Office calculated shares of 29.4% for electricity and heat, 21.6% for industrial combustion and processes, and 15.9% for transport. Agriculture accounted for 11.7%, Fuel Exploitation 11.3%, buildings 6.7% and waste 3.4%. These figures describe 2024, not 2025.
EDGAR’s 2025 gas mix was 73.8% fossil carbon dioxide, 17.6% methane, 5.3% nitrous oxide and 3.3% fluorinated gases.
The Global Carbon Budget 2025 gives a different historical comparison: it estimates that the United States produced 24% of cumulative fossil carbon dioxide emissions from 1850 through 2024, against China’s 15%. The study says the United States has led that cumulative measure since 1917 and links faster growth in global fossil carbon dioxide emissions during the 2000s to China’s growth.
EDGAR assigns emissions to where they occur. Ireland’s Parliamentary Budget Office says this can assign emissions from exported goods to the producing country, while consumption-based accounting attributes them differently. The office says where emissions are charged—at production or consumption—can shape incentives for businesses and consumers, but provides no estimate of who would bear the cost.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change scheduled COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, to open Nov. 9 and run through Nov. 20.
