Economic activities that lead to the production of global greenhouse gases in year 2010 were: Source “Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data” (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2019):
- Electricity and heat production (25%) - includes burning of coal, natural gas, and oil for offsite generation of electricity and heat
- Agriculture, forestry, and other land use (24%) - includes deforestation and cultivation of crops & livestock
- Manufacturing industries (21%) - includes fossil fuels burned onsite for energy & emissions from waste management and other activities in industries
- Transportation (14%) - includes fossil fuels burned for road, rail, air, and marine transportation
- Buildings (6%) - includes burning fuels for heat or cooking onsite in buildings
- Other (10%)
Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser, “CO₂ and Greenhouse Gas Emissions” (OurWorldInData.org, 2019) have a similar report for year 2014.
Experts at “Cooler Smarter: Geek Out on the Data!” (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2012) tracked that for an American, highest emissions come from five areas of life:
- transportation (28%)
- all the products and services we spend money on (26%)
- home heating and cooling (17%)
- home energy use by appliances and other electronics (15%)
- food (14%)
