Does China Account For Twice as Many Emissions as America and Europe Combined?

This tweet claims that China is allegedly responsible for twice as many emissions as America and Europe combined.

Background

According to the most recent (2022) BP Statistical Review of World Energy, Carbon dioxide emissions from methane and industrial processes recorded the highest increase by 2.9% and 4.6% respectively.

“Considerable progress has been made in sovereign pledges to achieve net zero, but those growing ambitions have yet to translate into tangible progress on the ground: carbon emissions have risen in every year since the Paris goals were agreed (other than in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic). The world remains on an unsustainable path,” the report states.

Verification

Various reports on greenhouse gas emissions do reveal that China indeed contributes the most amount of greenhouse gas emissions. This is attributed to the country’s rapid industrialization in the past year. According to Forbes, China surpassed America, who had been the world’s biggest polluter in terms of carbon emissions in 2005. By 2012 China had surpassed the combined emissions of both the U.S. and the EU.

However, to date, there is no proof that China’s carbon emissions are twice as much those of America and the Eu as the tweet claims. Going by a report on the Our Word in Data platform, America and Europe combined contribute 2.8 billion tonnes more of emissions at 6.5 billion tonnes and 6.1 billion tonnes respectively, compared to China’s 9.8 billion tonnes.

Going by the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2022, China produced 1511.3 million tonnes of carbon emissions in the most increased category of emissions from methane and industrial processes, accounting for the largest single country share of emissions at 31.6%. This compares to the whole of the North American continent at 11.9% (567.1 million tonnes of emissions) and all of Europe at 4% (192.8 million tonnes of emissions). Even so, China still does not account for twice as much emissions as Europe and America combined.

Verdict

The claim that China accounts for twice as many emissions as America and Europe combined is FALSE.

This fact-check was produced by Africa Uncensored with support from Code for Africa’s PesaCheck, International Fact-Checking Network, and African Fact-Checking Alliance network.