Bulgaria's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
In 2024, Bulgaria's emissions across these sources totalled around 27.3 megatonnes CO2e. Oil was the largest source, at about 13.6 megatonnes CO2 or 49.7%, followed by coal at 10.3 megatonnes CO2 (37.7%), gas at 5.0 megatonnes CO2 (18.4%), and other fossil sources at 2.7 megatonnes CO2 (10.0%). Land-use offset emissions with net removals of around 4.3 megatonnes CO2 (-15.8%). Over the ten years to 2024, coal, gas and other fossil emissions declined, while oil rose slightly and land-use removals strengthened.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions were negligible in the late nineteenth century, then rose through the mid-twentieth century, accelerating from around 12 megatonnes CO2 in 1957 to nearly 34 in 1965. They remained high through the following two decades, peaking at roughly 41.8 megatonnes CO2 in 1987, before declining steadily to around 10.3 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions were near zero until the mid-twentieth century, reaching around 2.9 megatonnes CO2 by 1960. They then climbed rapidly, peaking at roughly 39.6 megatonnes CO2 in 1978, before falling to around 12.1 in 1998. Emissions subsequently fluctuated at lower levels and reached about 13.6 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions remained small for much of the record, varying below 1 megatonne CO2 into the late 1960s. They rose sharply from around 0.4 megatonnes CO2 in 1972 to a peak of roughly 12.3 in 1988. Emissions then declined, settling near 5-7 megatonnes CO2 after 2001 and ending at about 5.0 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions began at around 2.2 megatonnes CO2 in the early 1850s and varied substantially, reaching a peak of roughly 10.8 megatonnes CO2 in 1929. They declined over the later twentieth century, becoming net removals after the late 1990s. Removals were strongest at around 8.4 megatonnes CO2 in 2006 and measured about 4.3 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were close to zero in the early record and remained below 0.4 megatonnes CO2 until the early 1950s. They rose to around 2.5 megatonnes CO2 by 1981, then varied at roughly 2-3 megatonnes. Emissions peaked at about 3.5 megatonnes CO2 in 2022 and ended at around 2.7 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.