Global and National Fossil-Fuel CO2 Emissions from 1751 to 2017

Dennis Gilfillan and Appalachian State University provide a time series of Carbon Dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement manufacture. The dataset includes global and national estimates from 1751 to 2017, covering emissions from solid, liquid, and gas fuels, cement production, and gas flaring. It is the foundational dataset for the annual global carbon budget and other carbon cycle analyses.

Use Cases

• Modeling national carbon budgets based on country-level emission totals.
• Analyzing historical trends in per capita CO2 emissions.
• Allocating emissions from international trade using bunker fuel data.
• Comparing contributions from different fuel sources like solid, liquid, and gas fuels.

Strengths

• Covers a 266-year time range from 1751 to 2017.
• Includes emissions from multiple sources: solid, liquid, and gas fuels, cement production, and gas flaring.
• Provides both global totals and country-level estimates, including per capita figures.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Appalachian State University, building on historic CDIAC data from Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Collection Method

Estimates generated using the United Nations Energy Statistics database and the United States Geologic Survey’s cement statistics.

Time Range

1751-2017

Freshness

Last updated date is unknown.

Geography

Global and national coverage.