What are the Yearly Human-Induced Greenhouse Gas Emissions in CO₂ Equivalent?

These are the yearly greenhouse gas emissions that result from human activities. This includes the following emissions:

• CO₂ fossil fuels and industry (CO₂ FFI)
• CO₂ land-use, land-use change and forestry (CO₂ LULUCF)
• Methane (CH₄)
• Nitrous oxide (N₂O)
• Fluorinated gases (F-gases)

These emissions are the main drivers of human-induced warming. The CO₂-equivalent unit makes it possible to compare the relative emissions from different gases. CO₂-equivalents are calculated using the global warming potentials of the respective gases, in this case using a 100-year time horizon.

In the scientific literature, human-induced emissions are often referred to as anthropogenic emissions.

CO₂ fossil fuels and industry

The sources are mostly fossil-fuel combustion emissions from coal, oil and gas, as well as emissions from industrial processes such as cement production.

CO₂ land-use, land-use change and forestry

The main driver of these emissions is deforestation, which includes logging and forest degradation, as well as other land-use change activities. The emissions also take into account the absorption of CO₂ by processes that remove CO₂ from the atmosphere, such as afforestation and reforestation. It is the net effect that is indicated here.

Methane (CH₄)

Methane emissions by human activities such as rearing livestock, agricultural practices and fugitive fossil fuel emissions.

Nitrous oxide (N₂O)

Common sources of Nitrous oxide are fossil fuel emissions and the agricultural use of synthetic fertilizer and manure.

Fluorinated gases (F-gases)

Fluorinated gases are a group oF-gases defined by UNFCCC: hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), sulfur hexafluoride (SF₆), and nitrogen trifluoride (NF₃). Fluorinated gases are also known as halogenated gases.

Units and measures

CO₂-equivalent emissions are expressed in the total weight in gigatonnes per year.

Insights from this chart

Total emissions have risen almost continuously since the 1850s, and by staggering amounts in the last 100 years. Over the last 10 years, emissions have stabilized, but there is as yet no reduction in emissions, other than a temporary reduction in 2020 due to Covid.

CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels and industry are by far the largest contributors to total emissions and have increased roughly ten-fold in the last 100 years. Emissions from methane, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases have all grown significantly over the same period. The CO₂ emissions from land-use, land-use change and forestry have been relatively steady for a very long time and have had a large historic impact.

About the data

Climate Change Tracker is part of the Indicators of Global Climate Change (IGCC) initiative to spread indicators of climate change that are consistent with the IPCC Assessment Report 6. The IGCC produces estimates for key climate indicators: emissions of greenhouse gases and short-lived climate forcers, greenhouse gas concentrations, radiative forcing, surface temperature changes, the Earth’s energy imbalance, warming attributed to human activities, the remaining carbon budget, and estimates of global temperature extremes.

Comparison with IPCC Assessment Report 6

The IPCC AR6 reported the average emissions per year for the 2010 to 2019 decade at 56±6 GtCO₂e. A new reassessment of that same period, 2010 to 2019, resulted in slightly lower emissions of 53±5.5 GtCO₂e, and the new assessment of the latest fully available period, 2013 till 2022, shows 53±5.4 GtCO₂e.

The IGCC CO₂ emissions data currently only contains Global Carbon Budget data since 1959. The historical data is taken directly from the Global Carbon Budget. The methane and nitrous oxide emissions data in IGCC is taken from PRIMAP. The F-gases value for 2023 is an estimate.

Data sources

IGCC Indicators of Global Climate Change 2023: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence, Piers M. Forster et al.
Credits: Credits: Smith, C., Walsh, T., Gillett, N., Hall, B., Hauser, M., Krummel, P., Lamb, W., Lamboll, R., Lan, X., Muhle, J., Palmer, M., Ribes, A., Schumacher, D., Seneviratne, S., Trewin, B., von Schuckmann, K., & Forster, P. (2024). ClimateIndicator/data: Indicators of Global Climate Change 2023 revision (v2024.05.29a) [Data set]. Zenodo.Update cycle: yearlyDelay: mixed

Global Carbon Budget 2024 Global Carbon Budget
Credits: Friedlingstein et al., 2024, ESSDUpdate cycle: yearlyDelay: ~ 10 months after end of a year. Current year values estimates published in November.Reference: Friedlingstein, P., O'Sullivan, M., Jones, M. W., Andrew, R. M., Hauck, J., Landschützer, P., Le Quéré, C., Li, H., Luijkx, I. T., Olsen, A., Peters, G. P., Peters, W., Pongratz, J., Schwingshackl, C., Sitch, S., Canadell, J. G., Ciais, P., Jackson, R. B., Alin, S. R., Arneth, A., Arora, V., Bates, N. R., Becker, M., Bellouin, N., Berghoff, C. F., Bittig, H. C., Bopp, L., Cadule, P., Campbell, K., Chamberlain, M. A., Chandra, N., Chevallier, F., Chini, L. P., Colligan, T., Decayeux, J., Djeutchouang, L., Dou, X., Duran Rojas, C., Enyo, K., Evans, W., Fay, A., Feely, R. A., Ford, D. J., Foster, A., Gasser, T., Gehlen, M., Gkritzalis, T., Grassi, G., Gregor, L., Gruber, N., Gürses, Ö., Harris, I., Hefner, M., Heinke, J., Hurtt, G. C., Iida, Y., Ilyina, T., Jacobson, A. R., Jain, A., Jarníková, T., Jersild, A., Jiang, F., Jin, Z., Kato, E., Keeling, R. F., Klein Goldewijk, K., Knauer, J., Korsbakken, J. I., Lauvset, S. K., Lefèvre, N., Liu, Z., Liu, J., Ma, L., Maksyutov, S., Marland, G., Mayot, N., McGuire, P., Metzl, N., Monacci, N. M., Morgan, E. J., Nakaoka, S.-I., Neill, C., Niwa, Y., Nützel, T., Olivier, L., Ono, T., Palmer, P. I., Pierrot, D., Qin, Z., Resplandy, L., Roobaert, A., Rosan, T. M., Rödenbeck, C., Schwinger, J., Smallman, T. L., Smith, S., Sospedra-Alfonso, R., Steinhoff, T., Sun, Q., Sutton, A. J., Séférian, R., Takao, S., Tatebe, H., Tian, H., Tilbrook, B., Torres, O., Tourigny, E., Tsujino, H., Tubiello, F., van der Werf, G., Wanninkhof, R., Wang, X., Yang, D., Yang, X., Yu, Z., Yuan, W., Yue, X., Zaehle, S., Zeng, N., and Zeng, J.: Global Carbon Budget 2024, Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss. [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2024-519, in review, 2024.

PRIMAP The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series (1750-2023)
Credits: Gütschow, Johannes ; Busch, Daniel ; Pflüger, Mika (2024): The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series (1750-2023) v2.6. Zenodo.Update cycle: Every few monthsDelay: Less than 1 year