Canada's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
In 2024, Canada's CO2 emissions across these sources totalled around 643 megatonnes CO2. Oil was the largest source, at roughly 245 megatonnes CO2 and 38.1%, narrowly ahead of gas at about 233 megatonnes CO2 and 36.3%. Land-use contributed around 109 megatonnes CO2 (17.0%), while coal and other fossil sources each contributed about 29 and 27 megatonnes CO2. Over the ten years to 2024, coal, oil and land-use emissions fell, while gas and other fossil emissions rose.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions began at around 0.07 megatonnes CO2 in 1851 and grew to roughly 76 megatonnes CO2 by 1913. After fluctuating through the mid-twentieth century, they rose again to a peak of about 129 megatonnes CO2 in 2000. Emissions then declined sharply, reaching around 29 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions were negligible through the early twentieth century, but rose from around 4 megatonnes CO2 in 1921 to roughly 233 megatonnes CO2 by 1972. They then fluctuated at high levels, peaking at about 264 megatonnes CO2 in 2004. By 2024, oil emissions were around 245 megatonnes CO2.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions remained near zero until the 1950s, reaching around 5 megatonnes CO2 in 1953. They then rose rapidly through the 1960s and early 1970s, and continued increasing over subsequent decades. Gas emissions peaked at roughly 241 megatonnes CO2 in 2023 before ending at around 233 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions began at around 63 megatonnes CO2 in 1851 and climbed to roughly 265 megatonnes CO2 by 1914. They varied substantially during the twentieth century, reaching a peak of about 380 megatonnes CO2 in 1959. Emissions have generally declined since 2000, ending at around 109 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were below 1 megatonne CO2 in the early twentieth century and rose to around 8 megatonnes CO2 by the early 1960s. Growth accelerated from the mid-1980s, with emissions peaking at roughly 28 megatonnes CO2 in 1998. After a modest decline, they rose again to around 27 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.