The latest figures from the EU’s statistics agency, Eurostat, show that Germany is the worst offender when it comes to pollution.

Last year the country released 760 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from fossil fuels, a rise of 2 percent.

Although across the 28 member states emissions were down by 2.5 percent in 2013 they increased in six countries including Germany. The other offenders were Denmark, Estonia, Portugal, France and Poland.

Those countries doing the best at making cuts in CO2 – which accounts for 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions causing global warming – were Cyprus, which went down by 14.7 percent, followed by Romania then Spain.