10 years of the Paris Agreement, top 10 carbon emitters of the world; where does India stand

Natural disasters, including the recent floods in Nepal and wildfires in Europe, have raised awareness about the impacts of climate change. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming”, which is increasing the risks of extreme weather events.

The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, set a global goal to limit this warming to well below 2°C and pursue efforts to keep it below 1.5°C.A decade later, measuring carbon emissions helps us understand the efforts taken by nations towards a clean energy transition. They tell the story of how the energy landscape has been transforming, yet how emissions remain at record highs.

According to the 2025 Global Carbon Budget, global fossil-fuel CO₂ emissions are expected to reach a record high of approximately 38.1 billion tonnes in 2025. That's an enormous amount of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere in just one year, largely from burning coal, oil and natural gas.But which countries are contributing the most?