Methane Emissions by Country 2024

What this chart shows. The 20 countries that emitted the most methane in 2024, in millions of tonnes of CO2-equivalent over 100 years. China led with 1,591 million tonnes, followed by India with 859 and the United States with 818. The world total was 9,499 million tonnes.

How the data is collected. The figures come from Jones and colleagues' dataset, as published by Our World in Data, and include methane from land use as well as from farming, energy and waste. As a check, the European Commission's EDGAR inventory, which uses its own methods, ranks the same four countries first: China, India, the United States and Brazil.

Background. Methane traps far more heat than CO2 per tonne but breaks down within about a decade, which is why it is converted to CO2-equivalents. Livestock, rice fields, coal mines, oil and gas systems and landfills are the main human sources.

Limits. Methane estimates are less certain than fossil CO2 figures. The two inventories disagree on the next places: here Russia is fifth and Indonesia sixth, while EDGAR puts Indonesia fifth and Russia sixth.