Austria's Progress and Recent Impact

Key Insights

Austria's Emissions Overview

In the latest available data, Austria's total greenhouse gas emissions amounted to 69.11 megatonnes of CO2-equivalent. This figure represents 0.1253% of the global emissions, highlighting Austria's relatively small share on the global stage. However, the per capita emissions tell a different story, with Austria recording 7.71 tonnes per person per year, which is classified as "very high" on the emissions scale. This indicates that while Austria's total emissions are modest compared to larger nations, its per capita emissions are significant, underscoring the importance of individual contributions to the overall emissions profile.

Per Capita Emissions and Energy Sources

The high per capita emissions in Austria are largely driven by fossil fuel consumption, particularly oil and gas, which together account for a substantial portion of the country's CO2 emissions. The historical reliance on these energy sources can be traced back to events such as the 1978 Nuclear Power Plant Referendum, which resulted in continued dependence on fossil fuels. However, Austria has made strides in reducing emissions through the expansion of its natural gas network in the 1980s and the significant increase in renewable energy capacity in the 2010s, which have helped to mitigate some of the emissions from fossil fuels.

Emissions Trend and Reduction Efforts

Over the past decade, Austria has seen a slight decline in its total emissions, with a yearly percentage change of -0.97%. This trend is supported by the country's commitment to international agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, which have driven efforts to enhance energy efficiency and promote renewable energy. The reduction in emissions is also reflected in the decline of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, which have decreased by 1.05% annually over the last ten years. These efforts demonstrate Austria's commitment to reducing its carbon footprint and aligning with global climate goals.

Methane and Nitrous Oxide Contributions

While CO2 remains the dominant greenhouse gas, methane and nitrous oxide also contribute to Austria's emissions profile. Methane emissions are primarily from livestock and waste, while nitrous oxide emissions are largely from agricultural activities. Despite their smaller share, these gases have significant warming potentials and are important targets for reduction. Austria's ongoing efforts to address emissions from agriculture and waste are crucial in achieving further reductions in these potent greenhouse gases.

Background

Recent per Capita Emissions

The Recent per Capita Emissions are a crucial indicator of a nation's greenhouse gas emissions. They are a fair measure for comparing the emissions of nations, taking into account the size of their populations.

Because any greenhouse gas emissions above 0 cause warming, the per capita emissions shouldn't be judged against the global average; they should be compared based on how far they are above 0. Therefore, our rating scale is:

Extremely High: above 10 tonnes per capita per year
Very High: above 7.5 tonnes
High: above 5 tonnes
Moderate: above 2.5 tonnes
Low: above 0 tonnes
Negative Emissions: under 0

The per capita emissions should be close to zero for each country, indicated here by the green & low areas.

Last Year Emissions

This is the total amount of CO₂, CH₄, N₂O, and F-Gases emissions of a nation in 2023 (last available year in the data) expressed in megatonnes of CO₂-equivalents. The gases have different atmospheric lifetimes (decay) and warming effects, for this reason, we use the GWP100 (100 year time horizon method) to calculate the global warming potential of CH₄, N₂O, and F-Gases to express them in CO₂-equivalents.

Wikipedia: Global Warming Potential

Last Year Share

This is a nation's share of the global emissions in 2023 (last available year in the data). For many countries this value can be quite small, especially when compared to nations like United States or China. It is easy and dangerous to jump to the conclusion that small shares of emissions don't matter. They matter as a group. Even small emitters can account for a significant amount of total emissions. Consider the following examples:

24 nations, each between 0.5 and 1.5% of the total emissions, make up 20% of the total emissions.
27 nations, each between 0.5 and 2% of the total emissions, make up 25% of the total emissions.
162 nations with a share below 0.5% make up 15% of the total.
3 nations, make 44% of the total emissions: China, United States and India. However, China and India together have a population of about 2.9 billion.

Per Capita Emissions are therefore the most crucial indicator to represent the impact of a nation regardless of its size.

Yearly Emissions Trend

This is a nation's trend per year over the last 10 years. It is a good indicator of the trajectory of national emissions and can be used as a simple framework to judge a nation's trend vs. international goals:

Stop warming around 1.5 °C: All nations together, and each nation, should drop emissions by 17% per year — 8,000 Megatonnes of CO₂ Equivalent per Year.
To achieve Net Zero in 2050 and to stop warming at ~1.7 °C: All nations should together, and each nation, should drop emissions by 4% per year — 2,100 Megatonnes of CO₂ Equivalent per Year.
Additionally, to return warming to pre-industrial levels almost all human-induced CO₂ has to be taken out of the atmosphere.

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About the Data

The last available year in all the emission datasets is 2023. CO₂ emissions data is from the Global Carbon Project. It contains national CO₂ emissions from fossil sources and land-use change. Emissions from CH₄, N₂O and F-gases come from the PRIMAP-Hist dataset. It is a rich dataset that combines several published sources to create a historical emissions time series for various greenhouse gases. Population data are also from Global Carbon Project where available, however, for many nations it doesn't have historic population going back to 1850. Those historic gaps are filled with population data from Our World in Data.

The Key Insights paragraph was generated using a large language model (LLM) using a structured approach to improve the accuracy. This included separating the context generation from the interpretation and narrative.

Data Sources

Global Carbon Budget 2024 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 et al., 2024, ESSD. 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-hist The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series (1750-2023)
Update cycle: Every few monthsDelay: Less than 1 yearCredits: Gütschow, Johannes; Busch, Daniel; Pflüger, Mika (2024): The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series (1750-2023) v2.6. Zenodo.

Our World in Data Population - Our World in Data
Update cycle: YearlyDelay: 7 monthsCredits: HYDE (2023); Gapminder (2022); UN WPP (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data