Other main findings include:

• In 2016, China, US, EU28, India, Russia and Japan, the world’s largest emitters in decreasing order of CO₂ emissions, accounted for 51% of the population, 65% of global Gross Domestic Product, 67% of the total primary energy supply and emitted 68% of total global CO₂ and circa 65% of total global GHGs.

• Emissions from international transport (aviation and shipping) contribute another 3% to the total global GHG emissions.

• These six countries show different trends: with 2% decreases for US and Russia, a 1% decrease for Japan, constant emissions for China and EU28 and a 5% increase for India. India does not show yet any decoupling of their emissions growth from their economic growth, unlike Brazil, where emissions fell by 6%.

• Emissions are increasing in other developing countries: 6% for Indonesia and Malaysia; 9% for Pakistan and 12% for the Philippines. Also in Eurasia emissions grew in Turkey (5%) and Ukraine (8%).

• Within the EU28 the trends vary between countries with decreases of 6% for the UK and Bulgaria and of 3% for Greece and Spain, while increases of 5% in Ireland and Denmark and of 4% in Sweden and Finland occurred.

Other greenhouse gases keep creeping up. Information on the other two greenhouse gases, methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O), is only available until 2012, as international statistics on agricultural activities—the main source of these emissions—are not updated as frequently as on energy and industry-related activities.

Uncertainty is also higher for these emissions than for CO₂ emissions. However, the data until 2012 shows a steady increase in global GHG emissions, with an overall increase of 91% from 1970 to 2012.

CH₄ is mainly generated by agricultural activities, the production of coal and gas, as well as waste treatment and disposal. N₂O is mainly emitted by agricultural soil activities and chemical production.

In the EU, 60% of the CH₄ and N₂O emissions are emitted by the top six emitting countries: Germany, UK, France, Poland, Italy and Spain. The upward trend in CH₄ and N₂O emissions is also visible in the US, China, Japan and India which all recorded increasing GHG emissions.

Europe’s downward trend stalling. Over the past two decades, the EU28 has steadily decreased its CO₂ emissions, which still represent two thirds of the EU’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2016, the EU’s CO₂ emissions were 20.8% below the levels in 1990 and 17.9% below the levels in 2005. Since 2015, the EU’s CO₂ emissions have stabilized, representing 9.6% of global emissions.

Country profiles. The report is based on the JRC’s Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR), which is not only unique in its space and time coverage, but also in its completeness and consistency of the emissions compilations for multiple pollutants: the greenhouse gases (GHG), air pollutants and aerosols.

The new report contains country-specific fact sheets for 216 countries. The factsheets show the evolution of country-level CO₂ emissions from 1990 to 2016 and the evolution of country-level GHG emissions from 1970 to 2012.