Carbon Emissions Per Capita Are Much Lower in Urban Areas with Higher Population Density

Annual carbon emissions per capita, in tons (2013)

Scatter plot showing that carbon emissions per capita are much lower in urban areas with higher population density

Note: Includes all urban areas in database with populations of 5 million or more, except the Hong Kong special administrative region and the country of Singapore.

Chart: Urban Institute Source: Author's analysis using data from Daniel Moran et al., “Carbon Footprints of 13,000 Cities,” Environmental Research Letters 13, no. 6 (June 2018) and A. Florczyk et al., "GHS Urban Centre Database 2015," multitemporal and multidimensional attributes, R2019A (European Commission: 2019). Get the data