placestats

CO2 per capita vs. Electricity use per person

Fades after adjusting for income

Across 187 countries, CO2 per capita and Electricity use per person rise and fall together at r = +0.63 (on a scale from −1 to +1, where 0 means no link). Comparing only countries with similar income (GDP per person) shrinks it to +0.42, which could easily be chance (q = 0.45, allowing for the many pairs tested, and allowing for countries in the same region being alike). So the first figure mostly shows richer countries differing from poorer ones, not a link between these two things. Caution: leave-one-out range spans 0.20 in r.

Comparing countries across the middle half of electricity use per person, 731 to 5,802 kWh per person, co2 per capita is worse by 3.21 t CO2e per capita at the top of that range than the bottom. Comparing only countries with similar national income, the gap is 2.29 t CO2e per capita.

Link before adjusting (r)+0.632p = 3.0e-22 · 187 countries
After adjusting for national income+0.421p = 2.2e-9 · likely range [+0.29, +0.53]
p, allowing for regions2.2e-5standard error 0.036 · 7 regions
Check for luck (q)0.451across 13,797 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.

CO2 per capita · t CO2e per capitalink with income +0.82 · proxy
Electricity use per person · kWh per personlink with income +0.93 · 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

CO2 per capita · t CO2e per capita →Electricity use per person · kWh per person →047.318.248,424Aruba: 5.15 t CO2e per capita, 9,253 kWh per personAfghanistan: 0.283 t CO2e per capita, 160 kWh per personAngola: 0.742 t CO2e per capita, 411 kWh per personAlbania: 1.79 t CO2e per capita, 3,106 kWh per personUnited Arab Emirates: 18.3 t CO2e per capita, 16,053 kWh per personArgentina: 4.01 t CO2e per capita, 3,543 kWh per personArmenia: 2.47 t CO2e per capita, 2,757 kWh per personAntigua and Barbuda: 3.8 t CO2e per capita, 3,945 kWh per personAustralia: 14.1 t CO2e per capita, 10,615 kWh per personAustria: 6.32 t CO2e per capita, 8,322 kWh per personAzerbaijan: 3.81 t CO2e per capita, 2,613 kWh per personBurundi: 0.069 t CO2e per capita, 40.6 kWh per personBelgium: 7.31 t CO2e per capita, 7,361 kWh per personBenin: 0.487 t CO2e per capita, 160 kWh per personBurkina Faso: 0.275 t CO2e per capita, 135 kWh per personBangladesh: 0.716 t CO2e per capita, 672 kWh per personBulgaria: 5.31 t CO2e per capita, 5,440 kWh per personBahrain: 23.9 t CO2e per capita, 23,919 kWh per personBahamas, The: 3.64 t CO2e per capita, 5,607 kWh per personBosnia and Herzegovina: 6.45 t CO2e per capita, 4,599 kWh per personBelarus: 5.94 t CO2e per capita, 5,054 kWh per personBelize: 0.932 t CO2e per capita, 2,038 kWh per personBermuda: 4.14 t CO2e per capita, 9,434 kWh per personBolivia: 2.29 t CO2e per capita, 1,083 kWh per personBrazil: 2.32 t CO2e per capita, 3,581 kWh per personBarbados: 2.52 t CO2e per capita, 3,930 kWh per personBrunei Darussalam: 20.2 t CO2e per capita, 12,016 kWh per personBhutan: 2.01 t CO2e per capita, 15,742 kWh per personBotswana: 2.74 t CO2e per capita, 1,852 kWh per personCentral African Republic: 0.0633 t CO2e per capita, 27.2 kWh per personCanada: 14 t CO2e per capita, 16,090 kWh per personSwitzerland: 3.75 t CO2e per capita, 7,262 kWh per personChile: 3.94 t CO2e per capita, 4,456 kWh per personChina: 9.32 t CO2e per capita, 7,460 kWh per personCote d'Ivoire: 0.589 t CO2e per capita, 315 kWh per personCameroon: 0.353 t CO2e per capita, 251 kWh per personCongo, Dem. Rep.: 0.0568 t CO2e per capita, 159 kWh per personCongo, Rep.: 1.34 t CO2e per capita, 850 kWh per personColombia: 1.8 t CO2e per capita, 1,715 kWh per personComoros: 0.515 t CO2e per capita, 165 kWh per personCabo Verde: 1.29 t CO2e per capita, 991 kWh per personCosta Rica: 1.63 t CO2e per capita, 2,416 kWh per personCayman Islands: 5 t CO2e per capita, 9,533 kWh per personCyprus: 5.4 t CO2e per capita, 4,311 kWh per personCzechia: 7.13 t CO2e per capita, 6,413 kWh per personGermany: 6.94 t CO2e per capita, 6,188 kWh per personDjibouti: 0.766 t CO2e per capita, 685 kWh per personDominica: 1.27 t CO2e per capita, 2,255 kWh per personDenmark: 4.28 t CO2e per capita, 6,775 kWh per personDominican Republic: 2.99 t CO2e per capita, 1,969 kWh per personAlgeria: 3.98 t CO2e per capita, 2,005 kWh per personEcuador: 2.64 t CO2e per capita, 2,003 kWh per personEgypt, Arab Rep.: 2.5 t CO2e per capita, 2,064 kWh per personSpain: 4.51 t CO2e per capita, 5,744 kWh per personEstonia: 7.76 t CO2e per capita, 6,948 kWh per personEthiopia: 0.147 t CO2e per capita, 229 kWh per personFinland: 5.54 t CO2e per capita, 15,610 kWh per personFiji: 1.62 t CO2e per capita, 1,238 kWh per personFrance: 4 t CO2e per capita, 7,152 kWh per personFaroe Islands: 0.0384 t CO2e per capita, 8,952 kWh per personGabon: 2.05 t CO2e per capita, 1,252 kWh per personUnited Kingdom: 4.22 t CO2e per capita, 4,621 kWh per personGeorgia: 3.53 t CO2e per capita, 3,862 kWh per personGhana: 0.702 t CO2e per capita, 634 kWh per personGuinea: 0.353 t CO2e per capita, 273 kWh per personGambia, The: 0.178 t CO2e per capita, 185 kWh per personGuinea-Bissau: 0.155 t CO2e per capita, 36.3 kWh per personEquatorial Guinea: 2.55 t CO2e per capita, 787 kWh per personGreece: 5.05 t CO2e per capita, 5,590 kWh per personGrenada: 1.5 t CO2e per capita, 2,047 kWh per personGreenland: 10.5 t CO2e per capita, 10,740 kWh per personGuatemala: 1.11 t CO2e per capita, 888 kWh per personGuyana: 4.56 t CO2e per capita, 1,660 kWh per personHong Kong SAR, China: 4.6 t CO2e per capita, 6,583 kWh per personHonduras: 1.14 t CO2e per capita, 1,167 kWh per personCroatia: 4.83 t CO2e per capita, 5,210 kWh per personHaiti: 0.298 t CO2e per capita, 73.1 kWh per personHungary: 4.46 t CO2e per capita, 5,077 kWh per personIndonesia: 2.87 t CO2e per capita, 1,314 kWh per personIndia: 2.17 t CO2e per capita, 1,423 kWh per personIreland: 6.04 t CO2e per capita, 7,091 kWh per personIran, Islamic Rep.: 9.05 t CO2e per capita, 4,281 kWh per personIraq: 5.18 t CO2e per capita, 3,406 kWh per personIceland: 8.52 t CO2e per capita, 48,424 kWh per personIsrael: 5.77 t CO2e per capita, 7,954 kWh per personItaly: 5.08 t CO2e per capita, 5,268 kWh per personJamaica: 2.84 t CO2e per capita, 1,733 kWh per personJordan: 2.09 t CO2e per capita, 2,054 kWh per personJapan: 7.84 t CO2e per capita, 8,366 kWh per personKazakhstan: 12.6 t CO2e per capita, 6,050 kWh per personKenya: 0.383 t CO2e per capita, 271 kWh per personKyrgyz Republic: 1.49 t CO2e per capita, 2,647 kWh per personCambodia: 1.1 t CO2e per capita, 1,254 kWh per personKiribati: 0.592 t CO2e per capita, 297 kWh per personSt. Kitts and Nevis: 2.88 t CO2e per capita, 4,908 kWh per personKorea, Rep.: 11.4 t CO2e per capita, 12,090 kWh per personKuwait: 23.7 t CO2e per capita, 18,402 kWh per personLao PDR: 3.35 t CO2e per capita, 2,009 kWh per personLebanon: 1.9 t CO2e per capita, 920 kWh per personLiberia: 0.154 t CO2e per capita, 102 kWh per personLibya: 8.66 t CO2e per capita, 4,686 kWh per personSt. Lucia: 1.71 t CO2e per capita, 2,225 kWh per personSri Lanka: 1.06 t CO2e per capita, 743 kWh per personLesotho: 0.428 t CO2e per capita, 248 kWh per personLithuania: 4.49 t CO2e per capita, 4,353 kWh per personLuxembourg: 10.6 t CO2e per capita, 9,846 kWh per personLatvia: 3.65 t CO2e per capita, 4,057 kWh per personMacao SAR, China: 2.53 t CO2e per capita, 8,719 kWh per personMorocco: 1.84 t CO2e per capita, 1,255 kWh per personMoldova: 3.42 t CO2e per capita, 2,059 kWh per personMadagascar: 0.146 t CO2e per capita, 76 kWh per personMaldives: 3.57 t CO2e per capita, 1,610 kWh per personMexico: 3.64 t CO2e per capita, 2,703 kWh per personNorth Macedonia: 4 t CO2e per capita, 4,604 kWh per personMali: 0.303 t CO2e per capita, 223 kWh per personMalta: 3.18 t CO2e per capita, 5,922 kWh per personMyanmar: 0.575 t CO2e per capita, 402 kWh per personMongolia: 7.85 t CO2e per capita, 3,528 kWh per personMozambique: 0.292 t CO2e per capita, 476 kWh per personMauritania: 0.969 t CO2e per capita, 458 kWh per personMauritius: 3.54 t CO2e per capita, 2,683 kWh per personMalawi: 0.221 t CO2e per capita, 83.6 kWh per personMalaysia: 8.32 t CO2e per capita, 5,556 kWh per personNamibia: 1.2 t CO2e per capita, 1,333 kWh per personNiger: 0.119 t CO2e per capita, 79.5 kWh per personNigeria: 0.567 t CO2e per capita, 165 kWh per personNicaragua: 0.83 t CO2e per capita, 784 kWh per personNetherlands: 6.6 t CO2e per capita, 6,601 kWh per personNorway: 7.18 t CO2e per capita, 24,490 kWh per personNepal: 0.536 t CO2e per capita, 372 kWh per personNaoero: 0 t CO2e per capita, 4,178 kWh per personNew Zealand: 6.01 t CO2e per capita, 8,252 kWh per personOman: 18.7 t CO2e per capita, 9,617 kWh per personPakistan: 0.812 t CO2e per capita, 766 kWh per personPanama: 2.74 t CO2e per capita, 2,943 kWh per personPeru: 2.02 t CO2e per capita, 1,749 kWh per personPhilippines: 1.5 t CO2e per capita, 1,054 kWh per personPapua New Guinea: 0.517 t CO2e per capita, 447 kWh per personPoland: 7.55 t CO2e per capita, 4,570 kWh per personPuerto Rico (US): 4.82 t CO2e per capita, 6,265 kWh per personPortugal: 3.32 t CO2e per capita, 5,805 kWh per personParaguay: 1.16 t CO2e per capita, 4,228 kWh per personQatar: 47.3 t CO2e per capita, 18,030 kWh per personRomania: 3.72 t CO2e per capita, 2,876 kWh per personRussian Federation: 14 t CO2e per capita, 8,168 kWh per personRwanda: 0.162 t CO2e per capita, 85.6 kWh per personSaudi Arabia: 18.5 t CO2e per capita, 13,385 kWh per personSudan: 0.433 t CO2e per capita, 309 kWh per personSenegal: 0.768 t CO2e per capita, 439 kWh per personSingapore: 9.75 t CO2e per capita, 10,295 kWh per personSolomon Islands: 0.384 t CO2e per capita, 134 kWh per personSierra Leone: 0.169 t CO2e per capita, 24.3 kWh per personEl Salvador: 1.51 t CO2e per capita, 985 kWh per personSomalia, Fed. Rep.: 0.0455 t CO2e per capita, 22.6 kWh per personSao Tome and Principe: 0.627 t CO2e per capita, 390 kWh per personSuriname: 4.06 t CO2e per capita, 2,743 kWh per personSlovak Republic: 5.51 t CO2e per capita, 4,886 kWh per personSlovenia: 6.27 t CO2e per capita, 6,759 kWh per personSweden: 3.57 t CO2e per capita, 12,866 kWh per personEswatini: 0.88 t CO2e per capita, 1,328 kWh per personSeychelles: 7.24 t CO2e per capita, 4,830 kWh per personSyrian Arab Republic: 1.27 t CO2e per capita, 984 kWh per personTurks and Caicos Islands: 4.92 t CO2e per capita, 5,799 kWh per personChad: 0.143 t CO2e per capita, 18.2 kWh per personTogo: 0.313 t CO2e per capita, 263 kWh per personThailand: 3.96 t CO2e per capita, 3,143 kWh per personTajikistan: 0.922 t CO2e per capita, 1,805 kWh per personTurkmenistan: 10.9 t CO2e per capita, 3,204 kWh per personTimor-Leste: 0.499 t CO2e per capita, 364 kWh per personTonga: 1.63 t CO2e per capita, 672 kWh per personTrinidad and Tobago: 19.6 t CO2e per capita, 6,334 kWh per personTunisia: 2.62 t CO2e per capita, 2,016 kWh per personTurkiye: 5.38 t CO2e per capita, 4,014 kWh per personTanzania: 0.311 t CO2e per capita, 132 kWh per personUganda: 0.165 t CO2e per capita, 107 kWh per personUkraine: 3.13 t CO2e per capita, 2,719 kWh per personUruguay: 2.57 t CO2e per capita, 4,358 kWh per personUnited States: 13.6 t CO2e per capita, 13,061 kWh per personUzbekistan: 4.09 t CO2e per capita, 2,419 kWh per personSt. Vincent and the Grenadines: 1.31 t CO2e per capita, 1,491 kWh per personVirgin Islands (U.S.): 0.00192 t CO2e per capita, 7,934 kWh per personViet Nam: 4.27 t CO2e per capita, 3,087 kWh per personVanuatu: 0.87 t CO2e per capita, 250 kWh per personSamoa: 1.6 t CO2e per capita, 734 kWh per personSouth Africa: 6.88 t CO2e per capita, 3,658 kWh per personZambia: 0.543 t CO2e per capita, 779 kWh per personZimbabwe: 0.773 t CO2e per capita, 727 kWh per personBDIBHRBTNCAFISLNOROMNQATSOMTTO

best-fit line line after adjusting

Four ways to measure the link

MethodrpCountries
Standard (Pearson), not adjusted+0.6323.0e-22187
By rank (Spearman), not adjusted+0.8574.1e-55187
Standard (Pearson), adjusted for national income+0.4212.2e-9187
By rank (Spearman), adjusted for national income+0.4299.8e-10187

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 187 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: +0.211 (a minus sign means it grew).

How solid is it?

Leaving out one country at a time, r ranges from +0.376 (without BHR) to +0.578 (without ISL). 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: ISL (+0.158).

Fragile: this link may not hold up.
  • leave-one-out range spans 0.20 in r

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 & Pacific27+0.67
Europe & Central Asia48+0.16
Latin America & Caribbean36+0.25
Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan21+0.66
Sub-Saharan Africa46+0.93

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 third63+0.64
Middle third62+0.28
Richest third62+0.39

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
Christians108+0.30
Muslims48+0.76

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+0.90
Never a European colony21+0.67
Spain19+0.06
United Kingdom62+0.67

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 = +0.384 after dropping 17 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.

Loading…

Over time, within countries

Everything above compares countries with each other at one moment. This section compares each country only with itself over 35years. So a link here can’t come from anything about a country that stays the same, such as its history, geography, institutions or culture.

Within countries over time, there is no link that is clearly more than chance (r = +0.275, comparing each country only with itself over the years, and each year only with the same year elsewhere). Whatever the cross-country picture shows, countries whose co2 per capita moved did not tend to see their electricity use per person move with it.

Across countries (adjusted)+0.421for comparison
Within countries+0.208each country vs itself
…and vs the same year elsewhere+0.275q = 0.297 · 198 countries
Year-on-year changes+0.251q = 0.118
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.

5,257 country-years (one country in one year), 198 countries, 1990–2024, about 27 years each on average. Share of the variation that happens within countries over time: 4% for CO2 per capita, 4% for Electricity use per person. 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 Electricity use per person trails CO2 per capita →lag -10: r = -0.085 (n = 3,287)lag -9: r = -0.052 (n = 3,485)lag -8: r = -0.031 (n = 3,683)lag -7: r = 0.000 (n = 3,881)lag -6: r = 0.024 (n = 4,079)lag -5: r = 0.057 (n = 4,277)lag -4: r = 0.098 (n = 4,475)lag -3: r = 0.140 (n = 4,673)lag -2: r = 0.190 (n = 4,871)lag -1: r = 0.238 (n = 5,068)lag +0: r = 0.275 (n = 5,257)lag +1: r = 0.277 (n = 5,312)lag +2: r = 0.268 (n = 5,280)lag +3: r = 0.259 (n = 5,248)lag +4: r = 0.254 (n = 5,216)lag +5: r = 0.250 (n = 5,184)lag +6: r = 0.248 (n = 5,152)lag +7: r = 0.244 (n = 5,120)lag +8: r = 0.229 (n = 5,088)lag +9: r = 0.208 (n = 5,056)lag +10: r = 0.190 (n = 5,024)

Same year (lag 0): +0.275. 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 data


t CO2e per capita
kWh per person		Years
Qatar QAT47.318,0302024, 2025
Bahrain BHR23.923,9192024
Kuwait KWT23.718,4022024, 2025
Brunei Darussalam BRN20.212,0162024
Trinidad and Tobago TTO19.66,3342024
Oman OMN18.79,6172024, 2025
Saudi Arabia SAU18.513,3852024
United Arab Emirates ARE18.316,0532024
Australia AUS14.110,6152024, 2025
Canada CAN1416,0902024, 2025
Russian Federation RUS148,1682024, 2025
United States USA13.613,0612024, 2025
Kazakhstan KAZ12.66,0502024, 2025
Korea, Rep. KOR11.412,0902024, 2025
Turkmenistan TKM10.93,2042024

World Bank, World Development Indicators
Ember, Yearly Electricity Data; population from Our World in Data, with processing by Our World in Data

Sources

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.

Electricity use per person

Electricity demand per person (kWh)

Ember · via Our World in Data · CC BY 4.0 · updated annual

All the electricity a country uses in a year, divided by its population, in kilowatt-hours (kWh). One kWh runs a 100-watt bulb for ten hours. It counts the power made at home plus imports, minus exports, including the power lost in wires along the way. So it is a little higher than "consumption" figures that leave those losses out. Use per person ranges from under 100 kWh a year in parts of Africa to over 50,000 in Iceland, where aluminium smelters use most of it, so a few industries can set a small country's figure. It rises steeply with income, and is measured in percentage terms (on a log scale) where it is used for adjusting. No "better" direction is set: more electricity can mean more comfort and industry, or more waste.

How this was computed

Data used: most recent value in 2010-2025; values come from 2022–2025. 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 13,797 pairs at once, using the Benjamini–Hochberg method. Underlying data last updated DYB 2024. How the country data works · explore CO2 per capita and Electricity use per person

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

More links with CO2 per capita or Electricity use per person