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UNITED STATES
The United States continues to be the largest single national source of fossil fuel-related CO2 emissions with emissions of 1650 million metric tons of carbon in 2004. The U.S. has emitted almost 88 billion metric tons of carbon since 1800 from fossil-fuel consumption and cement production. In fact, U.S. fossil-fuel emissions are 21% higher than those of the world's second largest emitter, the People's Republic of China, but his gap is closing quickly. Emissions in 2004 rose slightly (1.75%) from 2003 but have doubled since the early 1960s, although the U.S. share of global emissions declined from 44% to 22% over the same interval because of higher growth rates in other countries. Gone are the effects of the oil price shocks in the late 1970s, which had a major impact on U.S. emissions during the early 1980s. Per capita values in excess of 5.5 metric tons of carbon per person are the highest of the industrialized world and only 28% higher than the 1950 level. In 2004, 43.9% of U.S. fossil-fuel emissions come from the consumption of petroleum products. The United States was completely reliant on coal until after the Industrial Revolution and now coal usage accounts for 35.7% of U.S. fossil-fuel CO2 emissions.
Emission estimates for the United States from 1950 to 2004 include emissions from American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Wake Island. Until recently, U.S. energy statistics did not include energy activities in these territories and thus users will find historical emission time series for these entities in the database (e.g., Wake Island 1950-2002).