Carbon Emissions

(asked on 13th May 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the UK's CO2 emissions were in (a) in total and (b) per capita in (i) 1990 and (ii) 2019.


Answered by
Anne-Marie Trevelyan Portrait
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
This question was answered on 21st May 2021

Over the last three decades, the UK has achieved record clean growth and has met its world-leading climate change commitments. The UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions were 809 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent (MtCO2e) in 1990 and decreased by 44% to 455Mt by 2019. Specifically for CO2, the figures were 608Mt in 1990 and 365Mt in 2019 – a 40% fall.

At the same time, the UK’s population grew by 16% between 1990 and 2019. This implies an approximate fall of over 50% in territorial greenhouse gas emissions per person, from 14.1tCO2e to 6.8tCO2e per person. Carbon dioxide emissions per capita fell from 10.6Mt per person to 5.5Mt.

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