Brazil's Yearly Greenhouse Gas Emissions in CO₂ Equivalent
Key Insights
Land Use Dominates Brazil’s Legacy
Brazil's emissions history is defined by land-use change and forestry. After modest levels in the early 20th century, emissions accelerated from the 1940s, peaking near 3,000 megatonnes in the early 2000s. Since then they have declined year after year to around 1,500 megatonnes-still very high and accounting for roughly three-fifths of Brazil's historical warming impact. This pivot from rapid rise to sustained decline is the most significant transition in the record.
Fossil Growth, Methane Momentum
Fossil CO2 was small until the 1960s, then grew quickly through the 1990s and 2000s, reaching nearly 600 megatonnes before easing to around 480 in recent years. Oil makes up roughly two-thirds of these fossil emissions. Methane rose steadily across the century-fast from the 1960s to mid‑2000s, then increasing more slowly. As growth moderated after the mid‑2000s, the warming impact from methane has eased even while emissions continued to edge upward. Nitrous oxide also trended upward to around 200 megatonnes, while fluorinated gases remain minor at roughly 20 megatonnes.
What The Trend Implies
Today, land‑use emissions are falling, while methane is still rising. Keeping land‑use on a downward path-especially by sustaining reductions in deforestation-and reversing methane's recent growth, particularly from livestock, would deliver the biggest near‑term gains. These two sources dominate Brazil's climate profile; progress on them will determine the country's overall trajectory.
Background
Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are the main drivers of human-induced warming. In the scientific literature, human-induced emissions are often referred to as anthropogenic 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)
Emissions from all different gases are expressed in CO2-equivalent units to make it possible to compare the relative emissions from these different gases. CO2-equivalents are calculated using the global warming potentials of the respective gases, in this case using a 100-year time horizon.
Wikipedia: Global Warming PotentialTotal Historic Share
Emissions from all different gases are expressed in CO2-equivalent units to make it possible to compare the relative emissions from these different gases. CO2-equivalents are calculated using the global warming potentials of the respective gases, in this case using a 100-year time horizon.
CO2 From 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. Cement also absorbs CO2 out of the atmosphere through carbonation, which reduces emissions by about 0.8 Gt per year and is included here.
CO2 From 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 are caused by human activities such as rearing livestock, agricultural practices, and fugitive fossil fuel emissions.
Nitrous Oxide (N2O)
Common sources of these emissions 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.
Wikipedia: Greenhouse Gas EmissionsIPCC: Annual Report 6, 5.2.1 5.2 Historical Trends, Variability and Budgets of CO2, CH4 and N2O
Units and Measures
CO2-equivalent emissions are expressed in the total weight in megatonnes per year. 1 Megatonne is equal to 1 million tonnes.
Wikipedia: MegatonneWikipedia: Global warming potential
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.
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 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.