The chart above shows transportation-based carbon dioxide emissions broken down by population in US regions. The South emits the most out of all the regions but the differences between the regions are not all that high.
Findings
- The difference between the region with the most per capita emissions, the South, and the region with the least, the Northeast, is 2.06 metric tons.
- The South emits 1.46 times the per capita carbon dioxide that the Northeast does.
- The Northeast is the only region that emits less than five metric tons per person annually.
Caveats
- Population data is from 2010.
- Emissions data is from 2013.
- All figures are rounded to the nearest hundredth.
- Population and emissions data come from different sources.
- The road network is very limited in Alaska, so much so that the state capital is not connected by road, and one in 78 people are pilots.
- The Southern US consists of Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, and West Virginia.
- The Western US consists of California, Washington, Colorado, Arizona, Oregon, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Hawaii, Idaho, Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming.
- The Midwestern US consists of Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
- The Northeastern US consists of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Delaware, Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
Details
The South has the most emissions per capita even though the top three per capita states (Alaska, North Dakota, and Wyoming) are not from the South. The Northeast is the only region that does not have a single state in the top 15 emitting states.
The United States as a whole emits 5.64 metric tons of carbon dioxide per person from transportation sources annually ranking it under the South and just above the West.
Sources
United States Census Bureau. "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2016." Accessed March 21, 2018. https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=PEP_2016_PEPANNRES&src=pt.
United States Department of Transportation. 2015. "State Transportation by the Numbers." Accessed March 21, 2018. https://www.bts.gov/sites/bts.dot.gov/files/legacy/_entire.pdf.