Benin's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
In 2024, Benin's CO2 emissions totalled around 30.2 megatonnes CO2e. Land-use emissions dominated, at roughly 24.1 megatonnes CO2 (79.9%), followed by oil at around 4.9 megatonnes CO2 (16.4%). Other fossil sources contributed about 0.47 megatonnes CO2 (1.5%), while coal and gas each contributed around 0.33 megatonnes CO2 (1.1%). Over the ten years to 2024, land-use emissions rose by about 0.93 megatonnes CO2 per year; coal, gas and other fossil emissions also increased, while oil edged down slightly.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions were negligible in the early 1950s, briefly reaching roughly 0.05 megatonnes CO2 in 1951 before falling to zero by 1957. They later became more variable, dropping to zero again in 2018, then peaking at around 0.41 megatonnes CO2 in 2023. Emissions ended 2024 at about 0.33 megatonnes CO2.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions began at around 0.1 megatonnes CO2 in 1950 and rose gradually, though unevenly, to about 0.5 megatonnes CO2 by 1990. Growth accelerated through the 1990s and 2000s, reaching nearly 4.9 megatonnes CO2 in 2015. Oil emissions peaked at roughly 5.2 megatonnes CO2 in 2018 and ended 2024 near 4.9 megatonnes CO2.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions remained close to zero for most of the period through the mid-2010s, although they briefly reached around 0.06 megatonnes CO2 in 2015. They then increased sharply from near zero in 2016, peaking at roughly 0.35 megatonnes CO2 in 2021. Emissions ended 2024 at around 0.33 megatonnes CO2.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions began as a net removal of around 1.7 megatonnes CO2 in 1851, reaching a low near 1.8 megatonnes CO2 below zero in 1859. They rose over the following century, reaching about 3.4 megatonnes CO2 in 1954, then increased further with fluctuations. Emissions peaked at roughly 30.9 megatonnes CO2 in 2017 and ended 2024 at around 24.1 megatonnes CO2.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were near zero through most of the twentieth century, with intermittent rises including about 0.1 megatonnes CO2 in the early 1980s. They began increasing around the turn of the century and reached roughly 0.21 megatonnes CO2 in 2016. Emissions then rose further, peaking at around 0.47 megatonnes CO2 in 2022 and ending 2024 at about 0.47 megatonnes CO2.
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.