Countries with higher manure emissions tend to have higher enteric fermentation emissions.
Comparing Emission Totals - Emissions (CO2eq) (AR5) - Enteric Fermentation with Manure Management — Emissions (CO2eq) from CH4 (AR5) across 167 countries, 2023–2050.
- Rank correlation
- +0.89
- Holding size constant
- +0.66
- Countries compared
- 167
- Period
- 2023–2050
What might link these
Both indicators reflect livestock-related methane emissions, so some correlation is expected. However, the partial correlation drops significantly after controlling for population and GDP, suggesting economic development or agricultural scale may drive part of the relationship.
Why this is not proof of anything
This is a correlation across countries, not an experiment. It cannot show that either indicator causes the other, and both may simply follow a third thing. The high rank correlation (0.8889) may overstate the strength of the direct relationship due to overlapping agricultural sectors.
The second figure above repeats the measurement with national population and income held constant. It is the more conservative number: a relationship that largely disappears there was mostly telling you that larger, richer countries have more of most things.
How this was measured
Both indicators were ranked across every country reporting each, and the two rankings compared — ranks rather than raw values, because a handful of very large countries can otherwise manufacture a relationship on their own. The calculation is arithmetic over figures already published on this site; the commentary above is drafted from the two indicator names and the resulting coefficients.