New data indicates that Shanghai is the city with the highest greenhouse gas emissions globally. From a provincial perspective, among the seven largest greenhouse gas emitting provinces in the world, all except Texas are in China.
The non-profit alliance “Climate Trace,” co-founded by former US Vice President Al Gore, utilizes satellite and ground observation data, supplemented by artificial intelligence (AI) to fill in gaps, in an attempt to quantify global emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and other air pollutants. They have produced, for the first time, a comprehensive list of emissions for all provinces, counties, and over 9,000 major urban areas worldwide.
On Friday, at the 29th United Nations Climate Summit (COP29), “Climate Trace” released this data in a PDF. The data reveals that in 2023, seven provinces globally had greenhouse gas emissions exceeding 1 billion tons, with six of them located in China, excluding Texas, which ranked 6th.
These seven provinces are respectively Shandong Province in China (1.28 billion tons), Hebei Province (1.17 billion tons), Shanxi Province (1.15 billion tons), Inner Mongolia (1.13 billion tons), Jiangsu Province (1.1 billion tons), Texas in the US (1.09 billion tons), and Guangdong Province in China (1.06 billion tons).
At the same time, Shanghai in China is the city with the highest emission volume globally. According to “Climate Trace,” the cities with the highest emissions in 2023 were Shanghai (2.56 billion tons), Tokyo (2.5 billion tons), New York (1.6 billion tons), Houston (1.5 billion tons), and Seoul (1.42 billion tons).
From a national perspective, China has the highest greenhouse gas emissions globally. In 2023, China’s total greenhouse gas emissions exceeded 17.213 billion tons, nearly three times that of the second-ranked US (approximately 6.676 billion tons).
Furthermore, when compared to the data from 2022, China had the highest increase in emissions in 2023, with an added value of 374 million tons, approximately four times that of the second-ranked India (967.47 million tons).
In contrast, the US saw the highest decrease in emissions globally. According to “Climate Trace,” the data comparing emissions from 2022 to 2023 showed a reduction of 61.886 million tons in the US.
When comparing emissions from 2015 to 2023, the countries with the largest increases in emissions were China, India, Iran, Indonesia, and Russia, while Venezuela, Japan, Germany, the UK, and the US witnessed the largest reductions in emissions.
Currently, countries participating in COP29 negotiations are striving to set new emission reduction targets and determining how much financially affluent nations should contribute to help the world achieve emission reduction goals.
“Climate Trace” indicates that global greenhouse gas emissions increased by 0.7% in 2023 and is estimated to slightly rise again by approximately 0.48% in 2024.
This dataset compiled by scientists and analysts from different organizations also examines traditional pollutants such as carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, ammonia, sulfur dioxide, and other chemical substances related to air pollution.