US CO2 emissions, 2025

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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The US Energy Information Administration recently released the year-end CO2 emissions from energy. Below is a summary of last year’s carbon dioxide releases, from various sources.

The total CO2 emitted from energy in the US in 2025 was 4904 million metric tons, or 4.9 billion tonnes. Below is the recent trend, with the dip in 2020 due to the COVID economic disruptions.

Year CO2
2019 5147 million metric tons
2020 4585
2021 4906
2022 4945
2023 4799
2024 4790
2025 4904

The increase in 2025 was mostly due to increased coal consumption, primarily in the electric power sector. Power generation from coal was up last year, while generation from natural gas was down slightly. However, overall natural gas consumption was also up last year, as other sectors burned more gas.

Below are the 2025 CO2 releases from each of the three main fossil fuels.
Petroleum: 2257 million tonnes (46%)
Natural Gas: 1813 (37%)
Coal: 826 (17%)

Petroleum remains the biggest source of CO2 in the US. The large majority of petroleum is consumed in the transportation sector, as gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel. Smaller amounts of petroleum products are used for home and business heating. Natural gas is used for electric power generation, as well as home and business heating, plus other industrial uses. Coal is mostly consumed in the electric power sector.

The EIA data also breaks down the CO2 emissions by sector.
The transportation sector emitted 1870 million tonnes of CO2 last year, or 38% of total CO2.
The electric power sector emitted 1487 million tonnes, or 30% of the total.

It can also be mentioned that China emits about 2.5 times more CO2 than the US. The US is in 2nd place, with India #3, but rising quickly.

_ Pete

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  • The five top petroleum-consuming countries, and their percentage shares of total world petroleum consumption in 2021, were:

  • United States20.4%

  • China15.7%

  • India4.8%

  • Russia3.8%

  • Japan3.5%

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Most of China’s CO2 emissions come from the burning of coal for their power stations, steel mills, and other industry. DB2 recently posted here about China’s growing coal-to-gas, coal-to-liquids, and coal-to-chemicals industries. Those processes produce more CO2 than, say, using natural gas as the feedstock.

It might be interesting to compare China’s electricity fuel mix with that of the US.

China:

Screenshot 2026-03-29 at 11-57-57 Energy Statistics Data Browser – Data Tools - IEA
Screenshot 2026-03-29 at 11-57-57 Energy Statistics Data Browser – Data Tools - IEA1088×895 49.1 KB

United States:

Screenshot 2026-03-29 at 11-59-04 Energy Statistics Data Browser – Data Tools - IEA
Screenshot 2026-03-29 at 11-59-04 Energy Statistics Data Browser – Data Tools - IEA1088×895 65 KB

Charts from the IEA interactive data browser found here.

China’s electricity system is already more than twice the size of the United States’ system, and China continues to grow. As shown on the first chart, the largest fuel source is coal, by a wide margin. Here in the US, we have replaced much of the coal-fired power generation with natural gas. In addition to natural gas being cleaner burning, combined cycle gas power plants are also usually more efficient than the traditional Rankine cycle plants.

_ Pete