Australia's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
Australia's CO2 emissions totalled around 407 megatonnes CO2e in 2024. Oil was the largest source at roughly 146 megatonnes CO2, or 35.9%, narrowly ahead of coal at about 143 megatonnes CO2 (35.1%). Over the ten years to 2024, coal fell by around 4.7 megatonnes CO2 a year, while oil rose slightly. Gas contributed about 75 megatonnes CO2 (18.5%) and increased, while land-use emissions, at roughly 20 megatonnes CO2 (4.9%), declined. Other fossil sources were about 23 megatonnes CO2 (5.7%) and rising.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions began at about 0.1 megatonnes CO2 in the early 1850s and rose to nearly 29 megatonnes CO2 by 1927, after a brief decline around 1930. Growth then accelerated from the mid-1970s, reaching a peak of roughly 206 megatonnes CO2 in 2009. They fell thereafter to around 143 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions were negligible through the early twentieth century, reaching only around 0.6 megatonnes CO2 by 1920. They grew increasingly quickly after 1945, rising to about 62 megatonnes CO2 by 1969, then continued upward more gradually. Oil emissions reached their record high of roughly 146 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions remained near zero until the late 1960s, when they were still below 0.5 megatonnes CO2. They then increased steadily, reaching a peak of around 83 megatonnes CO2 in 2020. Emissions subsequently declined, ending at roughly 75 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions started at roughly 31 megatonnes CO2 in the early 1850s and rose to about 122 megatonnes CO2 by 1925. They varied substantially thereafter, peaking at around 308 megatonnes CO2 in 2010 before falling to a low near 4 megatonnes CO2 in 2015. They ended at about 20 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were close to zero until after 1945 and remained below 4 megatonnes CO2 through the late 1980s. They rose sharply to around 13 megatonnes CO2 by 1990, then increased more gradually. Emissions peaked at roughly 27 megatonnes CO2 in 2019 and were about 23 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Background
The chart shows a national breakdown by source of the yearly CO2 emissions from human activities and processes expressed in megatonnes. It is critical to know and track the sources of national CO2 emissions in order to understand their individual impacts on climate change.
The sources of human CO2 emissions are
- CO2 From Fossil Fuels and Industry: coal, oil, gas combustion, other fossil processes
- CO2 From Land-Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry
Coal, oil and gas combustion
Fossil fuel CO2 emissions from the combustion of coal, oil and gas are emitted by processes in electricity generation, transport, industry, and the building sector. All processes can be linked to human activities. Examples include driving cars with combustion engines burning diesel or gas, or electric cars charged by electricity from a power plant that burns coal.
Other fossil processes
Fossil CO2 emissions from other processes include sources like cement manufacturing and production of chemicals and fertilizers. Cement also has an absorption factor highlighted in the absorption breakdown chart.
Land-use change
Human civilization emits CO2 by changing and managing its land. Those emissions come, for example, from deforestation, logging, forest degradation, harvest activities and shifting agriculture cultivation. Land-use change also absorbs considerable amounts of CO2, which is shown in the absorption breakdown chart. Land-use change emits more than it absorbs, so the net effect is still emissions, but less than for coal, oil and gas.
Wikipedia: Greenhouse Gas EmissionsEarth System Science Data: GCP 2020 paper: Section 2.2 Land-use change; Section 2.1 Fossil fuel emissions
IPCC: Annual Report 6, 5.2.1.1 Anthropogenic CO2 emissions
Units and Measures
CO2 emissions are expressed in the total weight in megatonnes per year. 1 Megatonne is equal to 1 million tonnes.
Wikipedia: MegatonneWikipedia: Global warming potential
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National CO2 emissions data through 2024 is from the Global Carbon Project and covers fossil sources and land-use change.
The Key Insights paragraph was created using a large language model (LLM) in combination with our data, historic events, and a structured approach for best accuracy by separating the context generation from the interpretation and narrative.
Data Sources
Global Carbon Budget 2025 Global Carbon Budget
Update cycle: yearlyDelay: ~ 10 months after the end of the year. Current year values are estimated and published in November.Credits: Friedlingstein, P., O'Sullivan, M., Jones, M. W., Andrew, R. M., Bakker, D. C. E., Hauck, J., Landschützer, P., Le Quéré, C., Li, H., Luijkx, I. T., Peters, G. P., Peters, W., Pongratz, J., Schwingshackl, C., Sitch, S., Canadell, J. G., Ciais, P., Aas, K., Alin, S. R., Anthoni, P., Barbero, L., Bates, N. R., Bellouin, N., Benoit-Cattin, A., Berghoff, C. F., Bernardello, R., Bopp, L., Brasika, I. B. M., Chamberlain, M. A., Chandra, N., Chevallier, F., Chini, L. P., Collier, N. O., Colligan, T. H., Cronin, M., Djeutchouang, L., Dou, X., Enright, M. P., Enyo, K., Erb, M., Evans, W., Feely, R. A., Feng, L., Ford, D. J., Foster, A., Fransner, F., Gasser, T., Gehlen, M., Gkritzalis, T., Goncalves De Souza, J., Grassi, G., Gregor, L., Gruber, N., Guenet, B., Gürses, Ö., Harrington, K., Harris, I., Heinke, J., Hurtt, G. C., Iida, Y., Ilyina, T., Ito, A., Jacobson, A. R., Jain, A. K., Jarníková, T., Jersild, A., Jiang, F., Jones, S. D., Kato, E., Keeling, R. F., Klein Goldewijk, K., Knauer, J., Kong, Y., Korsbakken, J. I., Koven, C., Kunimitsu, T., Lan, X., Liu, J., Liu, Z., Liu, Z., Lo Monaco, C., Ma, L., Marland, G., McGuire, P. C., McKinley, G. A., Melton, J., Monacci, N., Monier, E., Morgan, E. J., Munro, D. R., Müller, J. D., Nakaoka, S.-I., Nayagam, L. R., Niwa, Y., Nutzel, T., Olsen, A., Omar, A. M., Pan, N., Pandey, S., Pierrot, D., Qin, Z., Regnier, P. A. G., Rehder, G., Resplandy, L., Roobaert, A., Rosan, T. M., Rödenbeck, C., Schwinger, J., Skjelvan, I., Smallman, T. L., Spada, V., Sreeush, M. G., Sun, Q., Sutton, A. J., Sweeney, C., Swingedouw, D., Séférian, R., Takao, S., Tatebe, H., Tian, H., Tian, X., Tilbrook, B., Tsujino, H., Tubiello, F., van Ooijen, E., van der Werf, G., van de Velde, S. J., Walker, A., Wanninkhof, R., Yang, X., Yuan, W., Yue, X., and Zeng, J.: Global Carbon Budget 2025, Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss. [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-659, in review, 2025.