North Korea Fossil-Fuel CO₂ Emissions

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The total fossil-fuel CO₂ emissions for North Korea, or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, have averaged 11.2% growth from 1950-93, reaching 71 million metric tons of carbon. Since 1993, fossil-fuel CO₂ emissions have declined almost 68% to 23.1 million metric tons of carbon. As the world's 14th largest producer of coal, it is no surprise North Korea's fossil-fuel CO₂ emissions record is dominated by emissions from coal burning. Coal consumption accounted for 94% of the 2006 CO₂ emission total. With no natural gas usage, another 2.6% currently comes from liquid petroleum consumption, and the remainder is from cement manufacture. Recent estimates of per capita emissions (0.98 metric tons of carbon for 2006) from North Korea are below the global average (1.25) and well below the peak levels from the early 1990s for North Korea.