The greenhouse gas footprint of goods and services consumed in the EU amounted to 10.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalents per capita in 2022, according to Eurostat figures.
This indicator, released by the EU’s statistics agency, considers emissions generated throughout the production chains of products consumed in the EU, including emissions embedded in imported goods and services.
Among EU countries, the lowest greenhouse gas footprints were recorded in Sweden (7.9 tonnes of CO2 equivalents per capita), Portugal and Romania (8.0 tonnes each).
On the other hand, the highest footprints per capita were recorded in Cyprus (16.6 tonnes), Luxembourg (15.5 tonnes) and Ireland (14.2 tonnes).
This article presents key findings from a more detailed Statistics Explained article on greenhouse gas emission footprints produced by Eurostat.
EU production emissions lower than the greenhouse gas footprint
In 2022, the total greenhouse gas footprint of all goods and services consumed in the EU reached 4.8 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalents. At the same time, emissions generated by the production in the EU amounted to 3.6 billion tonnes. This suggests that a large share of EU’s greenhouse gas footprint was driven by the consumption of products that were produced outside the EU.
Both consumption and production-based greenhouse gas emissions decreased between 2010 and 2022, by 14% and 18%, respectively. However, in 2020, there was a sharp drop in emissions due to the pandemic.
Since 2020 the greenhouse gas emission footprint increased by 12% and the production-based emissions increased by 4% in 2022. Despite this increase, 2022 emissions remain lower than pre-pandemic levels in 2019 (by -1% for the consumption emissions and -6% for production-based emissions).
Statistics Explained article on greenhouse gas emission footprints, Eurostat
Statistics on climate change mitigation – online publication
