Publication

Although China and the United States are the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, China’s emissions on a per capita basis are significantly lower than those of the U.S.: in 2005, per capita emissions in China were 5.5 metric tons—much less than the U.S. (23.5 metric tons per capita), and also lower than the world average of 7.03 metric tons. China’s total GHG emissions were 7,234.3 million tons of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e) in 2005, 15.4 percent of which came from the agricultural sector. By comparison, total U.S. emissions were 6,931.4 million tCO2e, 6.4 percent of which were from agriculture. Within China’s agriculture sector, 54.5 percent of emissions come from nitrous oxide, and 45.5 percent come from methane, which is the opposite of the composition of global GHG emissions from agriculture.