Higher agricultural emissions strongly linked to crop residue emissions across countries
Comparing Emission Totals - Emissions (CO2eq) (AR5) - IPCC Agriculture with Crop Residues — Emissions (CO2eq) from N2O (AR5) across 159 countries, 2023–2050.
- Rank correlation
- +0.90
- Holding size constant
- +0.56
- Countries compared
- 159
- Period
- 2023–2050
What might link these
Agricultural activity likely drives both total emissions and crop residue-related N2O emissions, but the partial correlation suggests other factors (e.g., farming intensity, technology) also play a role. A careful reader should avoid assuming causation, as unmeasured confounders like agricultural policies or climate conditions could influence both.
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 may overstate the relationship due to shared methodological or definitional overlaps between the indicators.
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.