China's Cement Carbon Dioxide Emissions Have Ballooned

China’s share of global carbon dioxide emissions from the cement industry has ballooned from 8 percent of the world’s total in 1980 to 52 percent of the world’s total in 2017. As industrialization and globalization picked up over the past four decades, so has greenhouse gas emissions from this energy intensive industry. China is now one of the world’s largest economies.

The European Union, on the other hand, has seen a drop in their share of carbon dioxide emissions from the cement industry. In 1980 European Union countries, which had yet to form, made up 30 percent of carbon dioxide emissions. Now EU countries make up roughly 5 percent of global emissions. The United States and India have seen much smaller rises and dips in the share that each country contributes to global carbon dioxide emissions.

Note: A previous version of this chart incorrectly stated that these numbers were for carbon dioxide emissions generally. These numbers are for carbon dioxide emissions from cement production exclusively, in megatons of carbon dioxide (MtCO2).