Countries by methane emissions
China had the highest methane emissions of 217 countries in 2021, at 51,203.1 thousand tonnes of methane. Tokelau had the lowest, at 0 thousand tonnes of methane. The median was 293.1 thousand tonnes of methane. Source: the European Commission, Joint Research Centre.
Top 40 countries, 2021
Full ranking
| Rank | Countries | 2021 | Change on 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | China | 51,203.1 | +1% |
| 2 | United States | 28,577.9 | +0.3% |
| 3 | India | 28,497.2 | +2.7% |
| 4 | Brazil | 21,278.1 | +2.4% |
| 5 | Russia | 14,876.6 | +3.5% |
| 6 | Indonesia | 12,683.4 | +4.6% |
| 7 | Pakistan | 8,305.1 | +3.3% |
| 8 | Nigeria | 5,893.3 | -2.9% |
| 9 | Mexico | 4,869.5 | +0.7% |
| 10 | Iraq | 4,861.8 | -0.5% |
| 11 | Iran | 4,860.9 | +10.1% |
| 12 | Argentina | 4,711.4 | -1.1% |
| 13 | Australia | 4,547.5 | 0% |
| 14 | Vietnam | 4,267.2 | +2.9% |
| 15 | Canada | 4,231.2 | +2.7% |
| 16 | Ethiopia | 4,003.5 | -3.1% |
| 17 | Saudi Arabia | 3,669.9 | -1.1% |
| 18 | Colombia | 3,093.6 | +3.6% |
| 19 | South Africa | 2,950.3 | -2% |
| 20 | Myanmar | 2,773.9 | +3.1% |
| 21 | Bangladesh | 2,698.1 | +1.5% |
| 22 | Türkiye | 2,668.4 | -0.4% |
| 23 | Philippines | 2,608.2 | +1.8% |
| 24 | Thailand | 2,537.1 | +1.5% |
| 25 | France | 2,410 | -2% |
| 26 | Kenya | 2,278.4 | -9.8% |
| 27 | Chad | 2,237.5 | +4.4% |
| 28 | Uzbekistan | 2,230.8 | +3% |
| 29 | Ukraine | 2,228.7 | -2.9% |
| 30 | Germany | 2,038.1 | -1.1% |
| 31 | Egypt | 2,021.8 | -0.5% |
| 32 | Kazakhstan | 1,954.8 | +3.7% |
| 33 | Japan | 1,933.5 | +0.5% |
| 34 | United Kingdom | 1,931.1 | -2.4% |
| 35 | Tanzania | 1,893.7 | +4.1% |
| 36 | Algeria | 1,889 | +4.6% |
| 37 | Venezuela | 1,755 | +2.3% |
| 38 | Italy | 1,731.8 | -0.6% |
| 39 | South Korea | 1,705.8 | +2.5% |
| 40 | Poland | 1,659.4 | +0.9% |
| 41 | Spain | 1,645.5 | +1% |
| 42 | New Zealand | 1,270.5 | -0.4% |
| 43 | Uganda | 1,269.2 | +5.3% |
| 44 | Kuwait | 1,265 | +0.5% |
| 45 | Democratic Republic of the Congo | 1,231.6 | +8% |
| 46 | Mongolia | 1,207.1 | -1.9% |
| 47 | Angola | 1,190.7 | -5.5% |
| 48 | United Arab Emirates | 1,109.7 | +1.4% |
| 49 | Morocco | 1,052.1 | +3.5% |
| 50 | Nepal | 1,032.4 | -0.1% |
| 51 | Oman | 1,008.3 | +2.1% |
| 52 | Paraguay | 978.1 | -0.8% |
| 53 | Mali | 967.8 | +5% |
| 54 | Libya | 958.1 | +112.6% |
| 55 | Uruguay | 956.3 | +4.5% |
| 56 | Cambodia | 953.4 | +5.1% |
| 57 | Niger | 921.1 | +4.7% |
| 58 | Turkmenistan | 919.7 | -0.4% |
| 59 | Peru | 918.3 | +2.5% |
| 60 | Somalia | 906.5 | 0% |
| 61 | Bolivia | 885.2 | +2.5% |
| 62 | Malaysia | 850.7 | -2.1% |
| 63 | Bahrain | 822.6 | -1.6% |
| 64 | Ecuador | 773.6 | -1.2% |
| 65 | Cameroon | 767.7 | +0.1% |
| 66 | Madagascar | 767.2 | -2.7% |
| 67 | Chile | 762.7 | -5.6% |
| 68 | Qatar | 740.1 | +0.1% |
| 69 | North Korea | 692.1 | -9.6% |
| 70 | Belarus | 674.7 | -0.5% |
| 71 | Netherlands | 662.3 | -1.5% |
| 72 | Ireland | 653.8 | +1.3% |
| 73 | Romania | 652.6 | -0.4% |
| 74 | Burkina Faso | 649 | +11.2% |
| 75 | Zambia | 605.2 | +6.8% |
| 76 | Guinea | 598.1 | +6.4% |
| 77 | Mozambique | 580.7 | +12.5% |
| 78 | Ghana | 576.1 | -4.2% |
| 79 | Afghanistan | 574.2 | +2% |
| 80 | Taiwan | 558.6 | +0.8% |
| 81 | Azerbaijan | 551.5 | +2.7% |
| 82 | Republic of the Congo | 493.6 | -8% |
| 83 | Czechia | 490.5 | +2% |
| 84 | Yemen | 447 | +1% |
| 85 | Cuba | 445.5 | -2.5% |
| 86 | Côte d’Ivoire | 443.8 | +5% |
| 87 | Guatemala | 436.9 | +0.4% |
| 88 | Dominican Republic | 435.3 | +3% |
| 89 | Belgium | 432.2 | -1.3% |
| 90 | Zimbabwe | 424.1 | +4.9% |
| 91 | Laos | 419.4 | +3.3% |
| 92 | Gabon | 416 | -6.2% |
| 93 | Senegal | 410.7 | +0.6% |
| 94 | Portugal | 404.6 | +0.5% |
| 95 | Greece | 399.7 | +2.9% |
| 96 | Hungary | 383 | -0.6% |
| 97 | Nicaragua | 362.6 | +1.9% |
| 98 | Sweden | 331.9 | -0.8% |
| 99 | Tajikistan | 328.4 | +2.4% |
| 100 | Honduras | 327.3 | +2.2% |
| 101 | Kyrgyzstan | 326.8 | +2% |
| 102 | Norway | 315.5 | +1.7% |
| 103 | Mauritania | 313.7 | +2% |
| 104 | Sri Lanka | 306.2 | +3% |
| 105 | Denmark | 303 | -0.4% |
| 106 | Tunisia | 302.9 | +4.4% |
| 107 | Haiti | 300.9 | -0.2% |
| 108 | Finland | 295.3 | +22.6% |
| 109 | Malawi | 293.1 | +3% |
| 110 | Austria | 291 | +0.7% |
| 111 | Bulgaria | 289.7 | +1.3% |
| 112 | Central African Republic | 265 | +0.8% |
| 113 | Benin | 231.6 | +5.6% |
| 114 | Syria | 226.5 | -6.7% |
| 115 | Switzerland | 216.1 | +1.7% |
| 116 | Costa Rica | 214.3 | +27.9% |
| 117 | Jordan | 204.4 | +4.9% |
| 118 | Slovakia | 200 | +2.8% |
| 119 | Namibia | 195.8 | +3.3% |
| 120 | Rwanda | 188.6 | +0.7% |
| 121 | Sierra Leone | 187.9 | +16% |
| 122 | Bosnia and Herzegovina | 187.5 | -7.7% |
| 123 | Togo | 180.1 | +3.9% |
| 124 | Trinidad and Tobago | 173.5 | -4.2% |
| 125 | Panama | 171.1 | +1.1% |
| 126 | Hong Kong | 169.6 | -0.6% |
| 127 | Burundi | 158.5 | +22.4% |
| 128 | Georgia | 151.9 | +3.4% |
| 129 | Croatia | 147.5 | -3% |
| 130 | Eritrea | 146.2 | +0.3% |
| 131 | Lebanon | 141.5 | +2.8% |
| 132 | El Salvador | 135.9 | +4.1% |
| 133 | Equatorial Guinea | 135.6 | -13.1% |
| 134 | Singapore | 133.8 | -1% |
| 135 | Lithuania | 129.3 | -2.2% |
| 136 | Botswana | 118.7 | +1.5% |
| 137 | Slovenia | 109.3 | -5% |
| 138 | Liberia | 104.8 | +1.3% |
| 139 | Papua New Guinea | 100.3 | +0.8% |
| 140 | Armenia | 99.9 | +4.8% |
| 141 | Albania | 95.9 | -1.2% |
| 142 | Moldova | 94.7 | +1% |
| 143 | Guyana | 92 | +2.5% |
| 144 | Guinea-Bissau | 77.1 | +1.9% |
| 145 | Latvia | 73.6 | -0.6% |
| 146 | Brunei | 65.2 | -5% |
| 147 | Estonia | 62.8 | -0.2% |
| 148 | Puerto Rico | 55.6 | -1.1% |
| 149 | Eswatini | 49 | +2% |
| 150 | North Macedonia | 48.6 | -6.7% |
| 151 | Lesotho | 48.4 | +3% |
| 152 | Djibouti | 43.5 | +2.6% |
| 153 | Cyprus | 41.1 | +1.1% |
| 154 | Suriname | 37.2 | +0.6% |
| 155 | Bhutan | 36.4 | +0.6% |
| 156 | Gambia | 36.1 | -5% |
| 157 | Timor-Leste | 34.2 | -4% |
| 158 | Jamaica | 30.9 | +0.4% |
| 159 | Fiji | 25.7 | +1% |
| 160 | Luxembourg | 23.2 | +0.9% |
| 161 | Mauritius | 20.4 | -0.1% |
| 162 | Iceland | 19.9 | +0.1% |
| 163 | Comoros | 14.5 | +1.7% |
| 164 | Bahamas | 12.3 | +1.8% |
| 165 | Western Sahara | 12.3 | +1.7% |
| 166 | Belize | 9.7 | +2.2% |
| 167 | Vanuatu | 9.4 | +0.6% |
| 168 | Guadeloupe | 9 | -0.1% |
| 169 | Réunion | 8.4 | +0.6% |
| 170 | Malta | 8.3 | -1.6% |
| 171 | New Caledonia | 7.5 | -1.1% |
| 172 | Solomon Islands | 6.3 | +1.4% |
| 173 | Barbados | 6.1 | +0.9% |
| 174 | Cape Verde | 6 | +5.1% |
| 175 | French Guiana | 5.8 | +2.9% |
| 176 | Maldives | 5.7 | +5% |
| 177 | Samoa | 5.1 | +23.8% |
| 178 | Falkland Islands | 4.1 | +2.5% |
| 179 | Martinique | 3.8 | +0.8% |
| 180 | Tonga | 3.3 | +0.6% |
| 181 | French Polynesia | 3.2 | +0.7% |
| 182 | São Tomé and Príncipe | 2.6 | +0.9% |
| 183 | Seychelles | 2.5 | +3.5% |
| 184 | Saint Lucia | 2.3 | -1% |
| 185 | Greenland | 2.3 | +0.1% |
| 186 | Antigua and Barbuda | 2.2 | +0.8% |
| 187 | Dominica | 2 | +0.8% |
| 188 | Grenada | 1.9 | +1.6% |
| 189 | Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | 1.7 | +0.5% |
| 190 | Faroe Islands | 1.6 | -0.4% |
| 191 | Macao | 1.6 | +0.3% |
| 192 | Micronesia | 1.5 | -1.5% |
| 193 | Saint Kitts and Nevis | 1.4 | +3.9% |
| 194 | Palau | 1.1 | -0.6% |
| 195 | Aruba | 1 | +1.9% |
| 196 | Cayman Islands | 1 | +2.6% |
| 197 | Bermuda | 1 | -0.5% |
| 198 | Kiribati | 1 | +4% |
| 199 | U.S. Virgin Islands | 0.8 | +0.3% |
| 200 | Montserrat | 0.6 | -4.7% |
| 201 | Gibraltar | 0.5 | +0.9% |
| 202 | Guam | 0.5 | +1% |
| 203 | Mayotte | 0.5 | 0% |
| 204 | British Virgin Islands | 0.5 | +1.7% |
| 205 | Cook Islands | 0.3 | -3.4% |
| 206 | American Samoa | 0.3 | -0.5% |
| 207 | Turks and Caicos Islands | 0.3 | -8.2% |
| 208 | Saint Pierre and Miquelon | 0.2 | +1.7% |
| 209 | Wallis and Futuna | 0.2 | -0.6% |
| 210 | Northern Mariana Islands | 0.2 | +0.2% |
| 211 | Tuvalu | 0.2 | +1.9% |
| 212 | Anguilla | 0.1 | -0.7% |
| 213 | Marshall Islands | 0.1 | +0.4% |
| 214 | Saint Helena | 0.1 | -0.9% |
| 215 | Nauru | 0.1 | -2.7% |
| 216 | Niue | 0 | -0% |
| 217 | Tokelau | 0 | +16.4% |
Other periods
About this ranking
Methane (CH4) emitted in the year, in thousand tonnes of methane, from agriculture (livestock, manure, rice), fossil fuel production and distribution, waste and wastewater, fuel combustion and industry, as estimated by EDGAR. EDGAR estimates every country with the same IPCC methods and international activity statistics, so countries can be compared, but the values differ from the inventories countries report themselves. Emissions from land use, land use change and forestry and from large scale biomass burning (savannah and forest fires) are not included. The latest two years are fast track estimates from proxy statistics, replaced in later releases, and are marked provisional.
Tonnes of the gas itself, not CO2 equivalent: EDGAR weights a tonne of methane as 28 tonnes of CO2 (30 for fossil methane) over 100 years (IPCC AR5). EDGAR counts Andorra with Spain, Monaco with France, San Marino and the Holy See with Italy, and Liechtenstein with Switzerland. It reports Israel and Palestine, Sudan and South Sudan, and Serbia and Montenegro together, so those countries have no value here. Each release revises past years.
Every value in the ranking comes from the same publisher and the same period, so the countries are compared on one definition. Equal values share a rank.
How to cite
EDGAR (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research) Community GHG Database, European Commission, Joint Research Centre. EDGAR CH4 emissions by country, thousand tonnes (Gg) of methane. https://jeodpp.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ftp/jrc-opendata/EDGAR/datasets/EDGAR_2026_GHG/. Retrieved 2026-10-12. © European Union, licensed under CC BY 4.0.Citation styles
APA 7
European Commission, Joint Research Centre. (2026). EDGAR CH4 emissions by country, thousand tonnes (Gg) of methane (Countries by methane emissions, 2021) [Data set]. Retrieved October 12, 2026, from https://jeodpp.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ftp/jrc-opendata/EDGAR/datasets/EDGAR_2026_GHG/
MLA 9
EDGAR CH4 emissions by country, thousand tonnes (Gg) of methane, Countries by methane emissions, 2021. European Commission, Joint Research Centre, 18 Sept. 2026, https://jeodpp.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ftp/jrc-opendata/EDGAR/datasets/EDGAR_2026_GHG/. Invokely, https://invokely.ai/rankings/methane-emissions/countries?period=2021. Accessed 12 Oct. 2026.
Chicago (author-date)
European Commission, Joint Research Centre. 2026. EDGAR CH4 emissions by country, thousand tonnes (Gg) of methane. Countries by methane emissions, 2021. Dataset. Accessed October 12, 2026. https://jeodpp.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ftp/jrc-opendata/EDGAR/datasets/EDGAR_2026_GHG/. Also distributed by Invokely, https://invokely.ai/rankings/methane-emissions/countries?period=2021.
Harvard
European Commission, Joint Research Centre (2026) EDGAR CH4 emissions by country, thousand tonnes (Gg) of methane, Countries by methane emissions, 2021 [Dataset]. Available at: https://jeodpp.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ftp/jrc-opendata/EDGAR/datasets/EDGAR_2026_GHG/, via Invokely: https://invokely.ai/rankings/methane-emissions/countries?period=2021 (Accessed: 12 October 2026).
BibTeX
@misc{european_countries_by_methane_emissions_2021,
author = {{European Commission, Joint Research Centre}},
title = {{EDGAR CH4 emissions by country, thousand tonnes (Gg) of methane: Countries by methane emissions, 2021}},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {Data set},
url = {https://jeodpp.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ftp/jrc-opendata/EDGAR/datasets/EDGAR_2026_GHG/},
urldate = {2026-10-12},
note = {Accessed via Invokely, https://invokely.ai/rankings/methane-emissions/countries?period=2021. Publisher attribution: EDGAR (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research) Community GHG Database, European Commission, Joint Research Centre. EDGAR CH4 emissions by country, thousand tonnes (Gg) of methane. https://jeodpp.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ftp/jrc-opendata/EDGAR/datasets/EDGAR\_2026\_GHG/. Retrieved 2026-10-12. © European Union, licensed under CC BY 4.0.},
}
RIS
TY - DATA
AU - European Commission, Joint Research Centre
TI - EDGAR CH4 emissions by country, thousand tonnes (Gg) of methane: Countries by methane emissions, 2021
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/18
PB - European Commission, Joint Research Centre
DB - Invokely
UR - https://jeodpp.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ftp/jrc-opendata/EDGAR/datasets/EDGAR_2026_GHG/
L2 - https://invokely.ai/rankings/methane-emissions/countries?period=2021
Y2 - 2026/10/12
N1 - Accessed via Invokely, https://invokely.ai/rankings/methane-emissions/countries?period=2021.
N1 - Publisher attribution: EDGAR (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research) Community GHG Database, European Commission, Joint Research Centre. EDGAR CH4 emissions by country, thousand tonnes (Gg) of methane. https://jeodpp.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ftp/jrc-opendata/EDGAR/datasets/EDGAR_2026_GHG/. Retrieved 2026-10-12. © European Union, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
ER -
Use this data in your AI agent
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Rank Countries by methane emissions using official data, and cite the source.
rank_places {"indicator":"methane_emissions","level":"country","limit":10}
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Which country has the highest methane emissions?
China, with 51,203.1 thousand tonnes of methane in 2021, according to the European Commission, Joint Research Centre.
Which country has the lowest methane emissions?
Tokelau, with 0 thousand tonnes of methane in 2021.
Where does this ranking come from?
Every value comes from one source and one period, so the places are comparable: European Commission, Joint Research Centre, EDGAR CH4 emissions by country, thousand tonnes (Gg) of methane. Retrieved 2026-10-12.