What is a carbon footprint?
A plain guide to what a carbon footprint is, what it includes, how big the average Indian footprint is, and what the number can and cannot tell you.
How big is the average Indian's carbon footprint?
India's footprint per person is low by world standards, but the country's total is large because of its population.
| Measure | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| CO2 from fossil fuels and industry per person, India, 2024 | 2.2 tonnes | Our World in Data, from Global Carbon Budget 2025 |
| Same measure, world average, 2024 | 4.7 tonnes | Our World in Data, from Global Carbon Budget 2025 |
| Same measure, China, 2024 | 8.7 tonnes | Our World in Data, from Global Carbon Budget 2025 |
| Same measure, United States, 2024 | 14.2 tonnes | Our World in Data, from Global Carbon Budget 2025 |
| India's total greenhouse gas emissions, 2022, excluding land use and forests | 3,396 million tonnes CO2e | India's First Biennial Transparency Report (BTR-1) to the UNFCCC, MoEFCC |
| India's net emissions, 2022, including land use and forests | 2,824 million tonnes CO2e | BTR-1, MoEFCC |
Two points help in reading these numbers. First, the per-person figures above count only carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and industry; methane and nitrous oxide are not included. Second, these are territorial figures: they count emissions made inside India's borders, not the emissions hidden in goods that Indians import or export.
The average also hides big differences. A family in a large city that drives a car, flies and runs two air conditioners has a very different footprint from a farming family in a village that cooks on LPG and uses a few hundred units of electricity a year.
Sources: IPCC AR6 Working Group III, Annex I: Glossary (2022); IPCC AR6 Working Group III, Summary for Policymakers (2022); Our World in Data, CO2 emissions per capita (Global Carbon Budget 2025); Our World in Data, India CO2 country profile; MoEFCC, India First Biennial Transparency Report (BTR-1) to the UNFCCC; MoEFCC, India Fourth Biennial Update Report (BUR-4), December 2024; 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, Volume 2, Chapter 1; GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard (Revised Edition); SEBI circular on Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting, May 2021; Central Electricity Authority, CO2 Baseline Database for the Indian Power Sector, User Guide Version 22.0 (August 2026)
This article was prepared with AI assistance and checked by the GreenEye team against the sources shown in each section.
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