Countries with higher total emissions tend to have more manure left on pasture.
Comparing Emission Totals - Emissions (CO2eq) (AR5) - IPCC Agriculture with Manure left on Pasture — Emissions (N2O) across 167 countries, 2023–2050.
- Rank correlation
- +0.94
- Holding size constant
- +0.78
- Countries compared
- 167
- Period
- 2023–2050
What might link these
Agricultural emissions (like manure management) contribute to total emissions, so a link is plausible. However, population and GDP controls weaken but don’t eliminate the correlation, suggesting other factors (e.g., livestock intensity) may drive 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. Correlation alone doesn’t prove causation; other unmeasured factors (e.g., farming practices) could inflate the relationship.
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.