China's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
China's CO2 emissions totalled around 12,000 megatonnes CO2e in 2024. Coal was by far the largest source, at roughly 8,900 megatonnes CO2 (73.8%), rising by about 212 megatonnes CO2 per year over the ten years to 2024. Oil contributed around 1,700 megatonnes CO2 (14.2%) and gas nearly 900 (7.4%), both rising. Other fossil emissions were about 800 megatonnes CO2 (6.7%) and declining slightly, while land-use was a net sink of around 250 megatonnes CO2 (-2.1%) and becoming more negative.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions were relatively low through the early record, though they rose to roughly 750 megatonnes CO2 in 1960 before falling back to around 400 by 1968. They then climbed strongly to about 2,400 in 1998, with much faster growth thereafter. Coal emissions reached their record high of around 8,900 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions were negligible for much of the early record, briefly reaching roughly 23 megatonnes CO2 around 1960. They rose steadily from around 22 megatonnes CO2 in 1962 to about 510 in 1996, then increased further. Oil emissions peaked at roughly 1,730 megatonnes CO2 in 2023 before ending at around 1,700 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions remained close to zero until the mid-1960s, then rose gradually from roughly 2.6 megatonnes CO2 to around 72 by 2004. Growth accelerated after that, particularly from the early 2010s. Gas emissions reached a record high of roughly 890 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions began at around 160 megatonnes CO2 in 1851 and fell to roughly 24 by the mid-1870s, before rising unevenly through much of the twentieth century. They peaked at about 1,320 megatonnes CO2 in 1978, then declined markedly. By 2024, land use was a net sink of around 250 megatonnes CO2.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were negligible until the mid-twentieth century, reaching only around 1.9 megatonnes CO2 in 1955. They then rose rapidly, from roughly 94 megatonnes CO2 in 1984 to over 1,000 around 2020. Emissions peaked at about 1,020 megatonnes CO2 in 2020 and declined to around 810 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.