Visualized: Global Carbon Emissions by Sector

Pallavi Rao
2025-05-20 08:12:00
www.visualcapitalist.com

See this visualization first on the Voronoi app.

Visualized: Global Carbon Emissions by Sector

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Key Takeaways

The energy sector was responsible for 76% of all carbon emissions in 2022, latest available data shows.
Within the sector, electricity and heat generation account for a full-third of all emissions.

As extreme weather events become more frequent, understanding the sources of greenhouse gas emissions becomes more urgent.

This chart breaks down all carbon emissions by sector, with latest available data from Climate Watch for the year 2022.

Figures are in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO₂e). One billion tCO₂e is also usually read as one gigatonne of CO₂e.

Ranked: World Carbon Emissions by Source

Global demand for energy is growing at a rapid pace.

This same energy sector accounts for 76% of global carbon emissions.

Sector	Main Category	tCO2e (2022)	% of Total
Electricity & Heat	Energy	16.7B	33%
Transportation	Energy	8.2B	16%
Manufacturing & Construction	Energy	6.3B	13%
Residential & Commercial	Energy	3.2B	6%
Fugitive Emissions	Energy	3.1B	6%
Military Fuel Use	Energy	603M	1%
Agriculture	Agriculture & Forestry	5.9B	12%
Land-Use Change & Forestry	Agriculture & Forestry	1.3B	3%
Industrial Processes	Industrial	3.2B	6%
Waste	Waste	1.7B	3%
Total	N/A	50.1B	N/A

Just electricity and heat generation make up one-third of that total.

Transportation is another major source within energy, responsible for 16% of emissions, mainly from tailpipe exhaust.

Different data sources group emission categories by their own methodologies. Often industry, and building and construction is considered its own sector. Please see this source’s listed methodology for what each sector contains and why.

Outside of energy, agriculture is another key contributor: 12% of all emissions. Methane is the primary greenhouse gas here, released by livestock and in crop cultivation.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

Wondering how emissions work by country on a per capita basis? Check out: Countries Above or Below the Global Average Per Capita Emissions for another way of looking at the same data.

Source Link

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