More countries are seeing decreasing per capita coal emissions as they shift towards clean power, but coal pollution remains an issue, and a new analysis by Ember finds the top two coal polluters remain Australia and South Korea.

These top two coal polluters each emit more than triple the world average, and whilst 12 out of 20 G20 economies saw declining per capita coal emissions since 2015, the emissions in some emerging economies were still increasing in 2022.

The speed of clean transition is remains too slow to help drive fossil phasedown and keep 1.5C within limit. Top polluters such as Australia and South Korea decreased their per capita coal emissions by 26 per cent and 10 per cent respectively since 2015 but, as their starting point high.

The G20 accounts for 80 per cent of global emissions. Within the group, however, an individual’s coal emissions in 2022 were notably higher, with per capita figures reaching 1.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide, compared to the global average of 1.1 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

The UK lies fourth from bottom at 0.07 tonnes per person, marginally worse than of Fance, Brazil and Argentenia and better than Mexico and Italy.
"China and India are often blamed as the world’s big coal power polluters. But when you take population into account, South Korea and Australia were the worst polluters still in 2022. As mature economies, they should be scaling up renewable electricity ambitiously and confidently enough to enable coal to be phased out by 2030," noted Dave Jones, global insights lead at Ember.

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