The chart above shows transportation based carbon dioxide emissions in US regions. The South is responsible for over two-fifths of transportation-based carbon dioxide emissions.
Findings
- The difference between the region with the most emissions, the South, and the region with the least, the Northeast, is 424 million metric tons.
- The South emits 2.53 times the carbon dioxide that the Northeast does.
- Only the South emits more than 400 million metric tons of transportation-based carbon dioxide annually.
Caveats
- Emissions data is from 2013.
- Washington DC is excluded from the list but emits one million metric tons. It would be included in the Northeast.
- 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 and the West together account for over three-fifths of all transportation-based carbon dioxide emitted in the US.
The United States as a whole emits 1,739,300,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from transportation sources annually.
Sources
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.