Countries that are decreasing CO2 gas emissions but still growing economically

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When it's about climate change, we usually think that the richer the country, the more CO2 it emits into the atmosphere.

It is a common thought, perhaps marked by the example of the largest economies in the world that have emitted more CO2: the United States and China.

When you review the data, it's clear that upper-middle-income countries (with China and India in the lead) rely on fossil fuels for their economic growth.

This brings us to another common thought: countries still need fossil fuels. Coal, oil, and gas are already available for exploitation to supply the energy nations need to generate electricity, heat, and transportation.

But can we find examples of countries achieving economic growth while reducing CO2 emissions?

Yes, indeed. When you check Our World in Data, some countries have decoupled economic growth from CO2 emissions. And they are not necessarily the developed countries you would expect on the list (which they are, like the UK, Germany, or Italy), but also Romania, Estonia, or South Africa.

"There are two key reasons why emissions have fallen in these countries. First, some countries have managed to decouple energy use and economic growth. GDP has increased while total energy use has remained flat, or even fallen. But the second is the most important: countries are replacing fossil fuels with low-carbon energy. We can produce more energy, without the emissions that used to come with it," explains Hannah Ritchie, Head of Research at Our World in Data.

Asia leads the consumption-based CO2 emissions

I analyzed the data from Our World in Data and made the charts below by using R and ggplot2. The purpose is to compare the role of Asian countries in contrast with the rest of the world.

As the visualisations show, Asia leads the consumption and production-based CO2 emissions. And the difference compared to other regions, especially Europe, is substantial.

You can see the data by interactingwith the charts. represents the annual CO2 emissions per capita, and the annual consumption-based CO2 emissions per capita (only until 2019).

What about GDP?

So far, we have analyzed the CO2 consumption and CO2 emissions per capita, showing us the role of China and India.

The data also compares both variables with the economic growth. represents GDP.