placestats

Child stunting vs. CO2 per capita

Holds up after adjusting for income

Across 153 countries, Child stunting and CO2 per capita rise and fall together at r = -0.42 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) flips the link to +0.12 (q = 0.028, allowing for the many pairs tested). The first figure pointed the other way only as richer and poorer countries differ. Caution: correlation moves sharply once outliers are trimmed.

Comparing countries across the middle half of co2 per capita, 0.575 to 4.27 t CO2e per capita, child stunting is better by 3.31% of children under 5 at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap reverses, to 0.769% of children under 5 the other way.

Link before adjusting (r)-0.415p = 9.4e-8 · 153 countries
After adjusting for national income+0.121p = 0.139 · likely range [-0.04, +0.27]
p, allowing for regions0.262standard error 0.097 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.028across 12,497 pairs

How to read these.r runs from −1 (one goes up as the other goes down) to +1 (they rise together), and 0 means no link. Adjusting for national income means comparing countries with the same GDP per person, so differences in wealth can’t explain the link. Income is used in percentage terms, since an extra $1,000 means more to a poor country than to a rich one. p is how likely a link this strong would be if there were really none. Below 0.05 means it is unlikely to be chance. Very small values are written in short form: 1.1e-32 means a decimal point followed by 31 zeros and then 11, so very close to zero. The likely range is where the true figure probably lies, and a range that crosses zero means the link could easily be chance. Countries in the same region tend to resemble each other, so the third figure allows for that, which gives a fairer p. The standard error is the typical size of the error in r. Finally, testing this many pairs means some will look strong by luck alone. A q below 0.05 means this link is unlikely to be one of those.

Child stunting · % of children under 5link with income -0.80 · proxy
CO2 per capita · t CO2e per capitalink with income +0.82 · proxy

Both of these rise and fall closely with national income, so a strong link between them before adjusting was close to certain. Read the adjusted figure, not the first one.

“Link with income” is how closely each measure tracks GDP per person across countries, from −1 to +1.

Every country as a dot

Child stunting · % of children under 5 →CO2 per capita · t CO2e per capita →1%55.3%047.3Afghanistan: 42% of children under 5, 0.283 t CO2e per capitaAngola: 47.7% of children under 5, 0.742 t CO2e per capitaAlbania: 7.4% of children under 5, 1.79 t CO2e per capitaArgentina: 10.7% of children under 5, 4.01 t CO2e per capitaArmenia: 6.2% of children under 5, 2.47 t CO2e per capitaAustralia: 3.1% of children under 5, 14.1 t CO2e per capitaAzerbaijan: 6.8% of children under 5, 3.81 t CO2e per capitaBurundi: 55.3% of children under 5, 0.069 t CO2e per capitaBelgium: 2.6% of children under 5, 7.31 t CO2e per capitaBenin: 33.2% of children under 5, 0.487 t CO2e per capitaBurkina Faso: 19.5% of children under 5, 0.275 t CO2e per capitaBangladesh: 25.1% of children under 5, 0.716 t CO2e per capitaBulgaria: 5.5% of children under 5, 5.31 t CO2e per capitaBahrain: 4.6% of children under 5, 23.9 t CO2e per capitaBosnia and Herzegovina: 7.9% of children under 5, 6.45 t CO2e per capitaBelarus: 1.1% of children under 5, 5.94 t CO2e per capitaBelize: 11.7% of children under 5, 0.932 t CO2e per capitaBolivia: 10.7% of children under 5, 2.29 t CO2e per capitaBrazil: 8.9% of children under 5, 2.32 t CO2e per capitaBarbados: 5.8% of children under 5, 2.52 t CO2e per capitaBrunei Darussalam: 9.9% of children under 5, 20.2 t CO2e per capitaBhutan: 17.9% of children under 5, 2.01 t CO2e per capitaBotswana: 21% of children under 5, 2.74 t CO2e per capitaCentral African Republic: 38.9% of children under 5, 0.0633 t CO2e per capitaChile: 1.7% of children under 5, 3.94 t CO2e per capitaChina: 4.5% of children under 5, 9.32 t CO2e per capitaCote d'Ivoire: 20.3% of children under 5, 0.589 t CO2e per capitaCameroon: 27.2% of children under 5, 0.353 t CO2e per capitaCongo, Dem. Rep.: 44.1% of children under 5, 0.0568 t CO2e per capitaCongo, Rep.: 16.3% of children under 5, 1.34 t CO2e per capitaColombia: 11.6% of children under 5, 1.8 t CO2e per capitaComoros: 17.4% of children under 5, 0.515 t CO2e per capitaCabo Verde: 5.3% of children under 5, 1.29 t CO2e per capitaCosta Rica: 10.6% of children under 5, 1.63 t CO2e per capitaCzechia: 2.4% of children under 5, 7.13 t CO2e per capitaGermany: 2.2% of children under 5, 6.94 t CO2e per capitaDjibouti: 20.9% of children under 5, 0.766 t CO2e per capitaDominican Republic: 5.6% of children under 5, 2.99 t CO2e per capitaAlgeria: 8.9% of children under 5, 3.98 t CO2e per capitaEcuador: 17.7% of children under 5, 2.64 t CO2e per capitaEgypt, Arab Rep.: 12.9% of children under 5, 2.5 t CO2e per capitaEstonia: 1.3% of children under 5, 7.76 t CO2e per capitaEthiopia: 35.5% of children under 5, 0.147 t CO2e per capitaFinland: 1.7% of children under 5, 5.54 t CO2e per capitaFiji: 7.2% of children under 5, 1.62 t CO2e per capitaGabon: 13.7% of children under 5, 2.05 t CO2e per capitaUnited Kingdom: 3.5% of children under 5, 4.22 t CO2e per capitaGeorgia: 4.7% of children under 5, 3.53 t CO2e per capitaGhana: 15.6% of children under 5, 0.702 t CO2e per capitaGuinea: 26.6% of children under 5, 0.353 t CO2e per capitaGambia, The: 14% of children under 5, 0.178 t CO2e per capitaGuinea-Bissau: 28.3% of children under 5, 0.155 t CO2e per capitaEquatorial Guinea: 17.1% of children under 5, 2.55 t CO2e per capitaGreece: 2% of children under 5, 5.05 t CO2e per capitaGuatemala: 44.6% of children under 5, 1.11 t CO2e per capitaGuyana: 7.1% of children under 5, 4.56 t CO2e per capitaHonduras: 17.9% of children under 5, 1.14 t CO2e per capitaHaiti: 21.6% of children under 5, 0.298 t CO2e per capitaIndonesia: 22.6% of children under 5, 2.87 t CO2e per capitaIndia: 32.9% of children under 5, 2.17 t CO2e per capitaIreland: 2.2% of children under 5, 6.04 t CO2e per capitaIran, Islamic Rep.: 4.8% of children under 5, 9.05 t CO2e per capitaIraq: 9.4% of children under 5, 5.18 t CO2e per capitaJamaica: 6.9% of children under 5, 2.84 t CO2e per capitaJordan: 7.7% of children under 5, 2.09 t CO2e per capitaJapan: 5.2% of children under 5, 7.84 t CO2e per capitaKazakhstan: 4.4% of children under 5, 12.6 t CO2e per capitaKenya: 17.9% of children under 5, 0.383 t CO2e per capitaKyrgyz Republic: 11% of children under 5, 1.49 t CO2e per capitaCambodia: 22% of children under 5, 1.1 t CO2e per capitaKiribati: 14.7% of children under 5, 0.592 t CO2e per capitaKorea, Rep.: 1.8% of children under 5, 11.4 t CO2e per capitaKuwait: 4.5% of children under 5, 23.7 t CO2e per capitaLao PDR: 29.9% of children under 5, 3.35 t CO2e per capitaLebanon: 10.1% of children under 5, 1.9 t CO2e per capitaLiberia: 26.9% of children under 5, 0.154 t CO2e per capitaLibya: 9.2% of children under 5, 8.66 t CO2e per capitaSt. Lucia: 2.8% of children under 5, 1.71 t CO2e per capitaSri Lanka: 10.1% of children under 5, 1.06 t CO2e per capitaLesotho: 35% of children under 5, 0.428 t CO2e per capitaLithuania: 1.6% of children under 5, 4.49 t CO2e per capitaLatvia: 1.7% of children under 5, 3.65 t CO2e per capitaMorocco: 13.7% of children under 5, 1.84 t CO2e per capitaMoldova: 4.2% of children under 5, 3.42 t CO2e per capitaMadagascar: 38.4% of children under 5, 0.146 t CO2e per capitaMaldives: 14.2% of children under 5, 3.57 t CO2e per capitaMexico: 13.1% of children under 5, 3.64 t CO2e per capitaMarshall Islands: 30% of children under 5, 0.00266 t CO2e per capitaNorth Macedonia: 3.8% of children under 5, 4 t CO2e per capitaMali: 23.2% of children under 5, 0.303 t CO2e per capitaMalta: 3.5% of children under 5, 3.18 t CO2e per capitaMyanmar: 24.5% of children under 5, 0.575 t CO2e per capitaMongolia: 7.1% of children under 5, 7.85 t CO2e per capitaMozambique: 37% of children under 5, 0.292 t CO2e per capitaMauritania: 21.5% of children under 5, 0.969 t CO2e per capitaMauritius: 7.8% of children under 5, 3.54 t CO2e per capitaMalawi: 33.2% of children under 5, 0.221 t CO2e per capitaMalaysia: 24.3% of children under 5, 8.32 t CO2e per capitaNamibia: 16.4% of children under 5, 1.2 t CO2e per capitaNiger: 48.3% of children under 5, 0.119 t CO2e per capitaNigeria: 33.8% of children under 5, 0.567 t CO2e per capitaNetherlands: 1.6% of children under 5, 6.6 t CO2e per capitaNepal: 26% of children under 5, 0.536 t CO2e per capitaNaoero: 16% of children under 5, 0 t CO2e per capitaOman: 12.9% of children under 5, 18.7 t CO2e per capitaPakistan: 33.6% of children under 5, 0.812 t CO2e per capitaPanama: 14% of children under 5, 2.74 t CO2e per capitaPeru: 10.6% of children under 5, 2.02 t CO2e per capitaPhilippines: 27.7% of children under 5, 1.5 t CO2e per capitaPapua New Guinea: 47.6% of children under 5, 0.517 t CO2e per capitaPoland: 1% of children under 5, 7.55 t CO2e per capitaPortugal: 3.2% of children under 5, 3.32 t CO2e per capitaParaguay: 3.2% of children under 5, 1.16 t CO2e per capitaQatar: 5.4% of children under 5, 47.3 t CO2e per capitaRomania: 7% of children under 5, 3.72 t CO2e per capitaRwanda: 29.8% of children under 5, 0.162 t CO2e per capitaSaudi Arabia: 11.1% of children under 5, 18.5 t CO2e per capitaSudan: 35.4% of children under 5, 0.433 t CO2e per capitaSenegal: 17.2% of children under 5, 0.768 t CO2e per capitaSingapore: 2.8% of children under 5, 9.75 t CO2e per capitaSolomon Islands: 29.8% of children under 5, 0.384 t CO2e per capitaSierra Leone: 25.2% of children under 5, 0.169 t CO2e per capitaEl Salvador: 9.4% of children under 5, 1.51 t CO2e per capitaSomalia, Fed. Rep.: 23.9% of children under 5, 0.0455 t CO2e per capitaSao Tome and Principe: 10% of children under 5, 0.627 t CO2e per capitaSuriname: 8% of children under 5, 4.06 t CO2e per capitaEswatini: 18.9% of children under 5, 0.88 t CO2e per capitaSeychelles: 6.2% of children under 5, 7.24 t CO2e per capitaSyrian Arab Republic: 23.5% of children under 5, 1.27 t CO2e per capitaTurks and Caicos Islands: 3.2% of children under 5, 4.92 t CO2e per capitaChad: 31.5% of children under 5, 0.143 t CO2e per capitaTogo: 23% of children under 5, 0.313 t CO2e per capitaThailand: 12.3% of children under 5, 3.96 t CO2e per capitaTajikistan: 13.1% of children under 5, 0.922 t CO2e per capitaTurkmenistan: 6.5% of children under 5, 10.9 t CO2e per capitaTimor-Leste: 45.4% of children under 5, 0.499 t CO2e per capitaTonga: 1.6% of children under 5, 1.63 t CO2e per capitaTrinidad and Tobago: 7.8% of children under 5, 19.6 t CO2e per capitaTunisia: 8.9% of children under 5, 2.62 t CO2e per capitaTurkiye: 5.5% of children under 5, 5.38 t CO2e per capitaTuvalu: 5.3% of children under 5, 0 t CO2e per capitaTanzania: 29.9% of children under 5, 0.311 t CO2e per capitaUganda: 23.5% of children under 5, 0.165 t CO2e per capitaUkraine: 11.7% of children under 5, 3.13 t CO2e per capitaUruguay: 6.5% of children under 5, 2.57 t CO2e per capitaUnited States: 4.2% of children under 5, 13.6 t CO2e per capitaUzbekistan: 6.7% of children under 5, 4.09 t CO2e per capitaViet Nam: 19.2% of children under 5, 4.27 t CO2e per capitaVanuatu: 31% of children under 5, 0.87 t CO2e per capitaSamoa: 8.4% of children under 5, 1.6 t CO2e per capitaSouth Africa: 24.4% of children under 5, 6.88 t CO2e per capitaZambia: 32.3% of children under 5, 0.543 t CO2e per capitaZimbabwe: 23.7% of children under 5, 0.773 t CO2e per capitaBDIBHRKWTNERPNGPRYQATTONTUV

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted-0.4159.4e-8153
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted-0.7407.6e-28153
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income+0.1210.139153
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income-0.0640.434153

The rank version uses only each country’s place in line, from lowest to highest, so a few extreme countries count for less. The adjusted and unadjusted versions use the same 153 countries: those that report both measures and GDP per person. So the gap between them comes from the adjustment, not from a change in which countries are counted. Drop in the size of r after adjusting: +0.295 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from +0.083 (without QAT) to +0.143 (without GTM). The bar above shows that range on a scale from −1 to +1, with the solid line at the full result. The single country that moves r most: QAT (-0.037).

Fragile: this link may not hold up.
  • correlation moves sharply once outliers are trimmed
  • sign flips once outliers are trimmed
  • direction is not consistent across regions

Within each region

Countries are not separate, unrelated cases, and neighbors share a lot. A link that holds inside each region is far more believable than one that shows up only when comparing regions.

nr
East Asia & Pacific26+0.04
Europe & Central Asia30-0.15
Latin America & Caribbean25-0.05
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan19+0.42
Sub-Saharan Africa46+0.09

By income third

If the link shows up only in the richest third of countries, it is a feature of rich countries, not a general pattern.

nr
Poorest third51+0.09
Middle third51-0.17
Richest third51+0.21

By largest religious group

Countries grouped by a label they share, such as main religion, rather than by a number. Groups of fewer than twelve countries are not shown. These groups differ in income, region and history all at once. So a gap between them is a place to start asking questions, not an answer.

nr
Christians84+0.04
Muslims47+0.15

By last european coloniser

Countries grouped by a label they share, such as main religion, rather than by a number. Groups of fewer than twelve countries are not shown. These groups differ in income, region and history all at once. So a gap between them is a place to start asking questions, not an answer.

nr
France25+0.24
Never a European colony21+0.35
Spain18-0.20
United Kingdom52+0.07

Without outliers (countries far outside the middle half of countries on either measure, by more than one and a half times the width of that middle half): r = -0.056 after dropping 13 countries.

Two series, one country

Both measures over the years for one country you pick. The two charts are stacked so they share only the years along the bottom.

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Over time, within countries

Everything above compares countries with each other at one moment. This section compares each country only with itself over 25years. So a link here can’t come from anything about a country that stays the same, such as its history, geography, institutions or culture.

The link shows up within countries over time (r = -0.194) but mostly disappears in year-to-year changes (r = -0.035). That points to slow trends particular to each country, not the two measures moving together from year to year.

Across countries (adjusted)+0.121for comparison
Within countries-0.112each country vs itself
…and vs the same year elsewhere-0.194q = 0.009 · 158 countries
Year-on-year changes-0.035q = 0.287
Read with care.
  • Almost all of this indicator's variation is between countries, not within them, so the within-country estimate rests on a small part of the data.

3,950 country-years (one country in one year), 158 countries, 2000–2024, about 25 years each on average. Share of the variation that happens within countries over time: 3% for Child stunting, 9% for CO2 per capita. The margins of error allow for each country appearing many times, and for each year’s value being close to the year before.

Year-to-year changes are a cautious test, not a final answer. Looking only at changes from one year to the next removes each country’s own trends. But it also makes measurement mistakes louder, which pulls the results toward zero. A near-zero result here is weak evidence of no link, not proof.

With one measure years behind the other

0.30−0.3-100+10years CO2 per capita trails Child stunting →lag -10: r = 0.110 (n = 3,950)lag -9: r = 0.098 (n = 3,950)lag -8: r = 0.084 (n = 3,950)lag -7: r = 0.055 (n = 3,950)lag -6: r = 0.025 (n = 3,950)lag -5: r = -0.009 (n = 3,950)lag -4: r = -0.052 (n = 3,950)lag -3: r = -0.087 (n = 3,950)lag -2: r = -0.121 (n = 3,950)lag -1: r = -0.158 (n = 3,950)lag +0: r = -0.194 (n = 3,950)lag +1: r = -0.216 (n = 3,792)lag +2: r = -0.237 (n = 3,634)lag +3: r = -0.258 (n = 3,476)lag +4: r = -0.271 (n = 3,318)lag +5: r = -0.285 (n = 3,160)lag +6: r = -0.292 (n = 3,002)lag +7: r = -0.292 (n = 2,844)lag +8: r = -0.287 (n = 2,686)lag +9: r = -0.284 (n = 2,528)lag +10: r = -0.287 (n = 2,370)

Same year (lag 0): -0.194. A peak away from zero does not show which comes first. These series change slowly — this year’s value is close to last year’s. That makes the curve smooth and nearly symmetric, whatever produced the data. Even a sharp peak at one lag (a gap of some years) would not prove that one measure changes the other.

The largest value on this curve (-0.29 at lag +7) is higher than the same-year one by 0.10. That gap is not a finding. It is the largest of 21 closely related estimates, and picking the biggest of many tests always makes it look bigger. That is exactly why nothing on this site is ranked or chosen by lag.

The data


% of children under 5
t CO2e per capita		Years
Burundi BDI55.3%0.0692024
Niger NER48.3%0.1192024
Angola AGO47.7%0.7422024
Papua New Guinea PNG47.6%0.5172024
Timor-Leste TLS45.4%0.4992024
Guatemala GTM44.6%1.112024
Congo, Dem. Rep. COD44.1%0.05682024
Afghanistan AFG42%0.2832024
Central African Republic CAF38.9%0.06332024
Madagascar MDG38.4%0.1462024
Mozambique MOZ37%0.2922024
Ethiopia ETH35.5%0.1472024
Sudan SDN35.4%0.4332024
Lesotho LSO35%0.4282024
Nigeria NGA33.8%0.5672024

World Bank, World Development Indicators
World Bank, World Development Indicators

Sources

Child stunting

Prevalence of stunting, height for age, modelled estimate (% of children under 5)

UNICEF, WHO and World Bank Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

An estimate from a statistical model. The agencies fit a model to household surveys and predict every country and year. So this is smoother than the surveys behind it, and it has values for years nobody measured. The survey-only series never reaches sixty countries in any year.

CO2 per capita

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions excluding LULUCF per capita (t CO2e/capita)

Climate Watch / World Resources Institute · CC BY 4.0 · updated quarterly

Replaces the retired EN.ATM.CO2E.PC series. The two cannot be directly compared, and they are deliberately not joined together.

How this was computed

Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 2024. To adjust for income, each measure is first predicted from GDP per person (in percentage terms, on a log scale) with a straight-line fit. Only what is left over is then compared. This is called a partial correlation. The line is drawn the standard way (ordinary least squares), which picks the line that comes closest to all the countries at once. The error margins allow for countries in the same region resembling each other, using 7 World Bank regions. The q-value corrects for testing all 12,497 pairs at once, using the Benjamini–Hochberg method. Underlying data last updated DYB 2024. How the country data works · explore Child stunting and CO2 per capita

This page shows that two measures go together. It does not show that Child stunting changes CO2 per capita, or the reverse. These figures also describe countries, not individual people. See the ecological fallacy.

More links with Child stunting or CO2 per capita