Historical CO2 Emissions Including Deforestation, 1850-2024
About This Dataset
Historical CO2 Emissions Including Deforestation, 1850-2024
What this chart shows. The 20 countries with the largest total CO2 emissions from 1850 to 2024 when deforestation and other land-use change are added to fossil fuels, in billions of tonnes. The United States leads with 560.5 billion, then China with 359.6 billion, Russia with 227.0 billion and Brazil with 139.4 billion.
How the data is collected. Land-use emissions in the Global Carbon Budget are estimated with bookkeeping models that track carbon released when forests are cleared and taken up when land regrows; the land-use series starts in 1850. The world total here is 2,752 billion tonnes, of which 907 billion came from land use.
Background. Counting land use changes the ranking: Brazil rises to fourth, Indonesia is 7th and DR Congo 18th, while Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan move down.
Limits. Land-use estimates are far more uncertain than fossil-fuel figures, and different models disagree on how emissions are split between countries. Totals are counted by today's borders.
How the data is collected. Land-use emissions in the Global Carbon Budget are estimated with bookkeeping models that track carbon released when forests are cleared and taken up when land regrows; the land-use series starts in 1850. The world total here is 2,752 billion tonnes, of which 907 billion came from land use.
Background. Counting land use changes the ranking: Brazil rises to fourth, Indonesia is 7th and DR Congo 18th, while Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan move down.
Limits. Land-use estimates are far more uncertain than fossil-fuel figures, and different models disagree on how emissions are split between countries. Totals are counted by today's borders.
Analysis
Land use makes up 33.0 per cent of all CO2 emitted since 1850 in this data. Brazil's total of 139.4 billion tonnes is larger than Germany's 94.9 billion.
Key Findings
🏆
United States leads in Cumulative CO2 Including Land Use (billion tonnes) with 560.50.
📊
Average Cumulative CO2 Including Land Use (billion tonnes): 106 · median: 59.60.
↔️
Gap: United States is 23.1× larger than Colombia.
Data Insights
Numbers, trends & sources behind this chart
Methodology & source
- Data source
- Global Carbon Budget (2025) via Our World in Data
- Coverage
- 20 entities · 1850-2024 · 20 observations
- Measure
- Cumulative CO2 Including Land Use (billion tonnes)
- Last updated
- 29 September 2026
- Compiled by
- The ANYSTAT team, from the source above
How the figures are calculated
- Values are shown as reported by the source. Nothing is rescaled, rebased or converted — the only changes are thousand separators and decimals shown to two places.
- Entities are ranked highest-first on their value.
An article using this data
The US Has Caused More Global Warming Than Any Other Country: Historical CO2, Methane and Deforestation by Country
Global Carbon Budget and Jones et al. data: the US has emitted 434.9 billion tonnes of fossil CO2 since 1750 and caused 17.65% of global warming; China leads on...
Data Sources & References
All external sources cited in this dataset
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