DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7076346
title: National contributions to climate change due to historical emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide

description: A complete description of the dataset is given by Jones et al. (2023). Key information is provided below.

Background

A dataset describing the global warming response to national emissions CO2, CH4 and N2O from fossil and land use sources during 1851-2024.

National CO2 emissions data are collated from the Global Carbon Project (Andrew and Peters, 2025; Friedlingstein et al., 2025). 

National CH4 and N2O emissions data are collated from PRIMAP-hist (HISTTP) (Gütschow et al., 2024).

We construct a time series of cumulative CO2-equivalent emissions for each country, gas, and emissions source (fossil or land use). Emissions of CH4 and N2O emissions are related to cumulative CO2-equivalent emissions using the Global Warming Potential (GWP*) approach, with best-estimates of the coefficients taken from the IPCC AR6 (Forster et al., 2021).

Warming in response to cumulative CO2-equivalent emissions is estimated using the transient climate response to cumulative carbon emissions (TCRE) approach, with best-estimate value of TCRE taken from the IPCC AR6 (Forster et al., 2021, Canadell et al., 2021). 'Warming' is specifically the change in global mean surface temperature (GMST).

The data files provide emissions, cumulative emissions and the GMST response by country, gas (CO2, CH4, N2O or 3-GHG total) and source (fossil emissions, land use emissions or the total).

Data records: overview

The data records include three comma separated values (.csv) files as described below.

All files are in ‘long’ format with one value provided in the Data column for each combination of the categorical variables Year, Country Name, Country ISO3 code, Gas, and Component columns.

Component specifies fossil emissions, LULUCF emissions or total emissions of the gas.

Gas specifies CO2, CH4, N2O or the three-gas total (labelled 3-GHG).

Country ISO3 codes are specifically the unique ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes of each country.

Data records: specifics

Data are provided relative to 2 reference years (denoted ref_year below): 1850 and 1991. 1850 is a mutual first year of data spanning all input datasets. 1991 is relevant because the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was operationalised in 1992.

EMISSIONS_ANNUAL_{ref_year-20}-2024.csv: Data includes annual emissions of CO2 (Pg CO2 year-1), CH4 (Tg CH4 year-1) and N2O (Tg N2O year-1) during the period ref_year-20 to 2024. The Data column provides values for every combination of the categorical variables. Data are provided from ref_year-20 because these data are required to calculate GWP* for CH4.

EMISSIONS_CUMULATIVE_CO2e100_{ref_year+1}-2024.csv: Data includes the cumulative CO2 equivalent emissions in units Pg CO2-e100 during the period ref_year+1 to 2024 (i.e. since the reference year). The Data column provides values for every combination of the categorical variables. 

GMST_response_{ref_year+1}-2024.csv: Data includes the change in global mean surface temperature (GMST) due to emissions of the three gases in units °C during the period ref_year+1 to 2024 (i.e. since the reference year). The Data column provides values for every combination of the categorical variables. 

Accompanying Code

Code is available at: https://github.com/jonesmattw/National_Warming_Contributions .

The code requires Input.zip to run (see README at the GitHub link).

Further info: Country Groupings

We also provide estimates of the contributions of various country groupings as defined by the UNFCCC:



Annex I countries (number of countries, n = 42)

Annex II countries (n = 23)

economies in transition (EITs; n = 15)

the least developed countries (LDCs; n = 47)

the like-minded developing countries (LMDC; n = 24).


And other country groupings:



the organisation for economic co-operation and development (OECD; n = 38)

the European Union (EU27 post-Brexit)

the Brazil, South Africa, India and China (BASIC) group.


See COUNTRY_GROUPINGS.xlsx for the lists of countries in each group.
description: This work was principally funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020 (H2020) VERIFY project (no. 776810). M.W.J. further acknowledges the support of the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC; no. NE/V01417X/1). G.P.P. further acknowledges the support of the H2020 4C project (no. 821003) and the H2020 PARIS REINFORCE project (no. 820846). R.M.A. further acknowledges the support of the H2020 4C project (no. 821003). T.G. was funded by the H2020 ESM2025 project (no. 101003536). P.F. was funded by the H2020 4C project (no. 821003). C.L.Q. was funded by the UK Royal Society (grant no. RP\R1\191063).