Climate Change Tracker
GlobalNationalEmbedding & DataDonateNewsletter
Climate Change Tracker
HomeGlobalNationalEmbedding & DataDonateNewsletter


🇨🇳 China's Yearly Greenhouse Gas Emissions in CO₂ Equivalent

China's Yearly Greenhouse Gas Emissions in CO₂ Equivalent

Key Insights

2024 Emissions Profile

In 2024, CO2 dominated China's emissions profile at around 12,000 megatonnes CO2, or 82.4% of the national total, rising by about 284 megatonnes CO2 per year over the ten years to 2024. Methane reached roughly 1,520 megatonnes CO2e (10.4%), increasing by around 29 megatonnes CO2e per year. F-gases were about 570 megatonnes CO2e (3.9%) and rising fastest proportionally, while nitrous oxide was around 475 megatonnes CO2e (3.3%) and changed little.

Historic Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Emissions

CO2 emissions began at around 160 megatonnes CO2 in 1851, but fluctuated markedly in the early record, falling to roughly 16 megatonnes CO2 in 1875 before recovering. They then rose strongly from the late 1920s, accelerating after the late 1960s. Growth was especially rapid after the late 1990s, reaching a peak of around 12,000 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.

Historic Methane (CH4) Emissions

Methane emissions started at roughly 250 megatonnes CO2e in 1851, declined slightly into the late nineteenth century, then rose gradually until the early 1950s. Growth accelerated thereafter and continued after 2000, reaching a peak of around 1,520 megatonnes CO2e in 2024. Methane's warming contribution since 1851 was around 57% larger than its emissions alone suggest, because methane's short atmospheric lifetime amplifies the warming impact when CH4 emissions are rising.

Historic Nitrous Oxide (N2O) Emissions

Nitrous oxide emissions began at about 6 megatonnes CO2e in 1851 and increased steadily through the twentieth century, with faster growth from the late 1930s through the 2000s. They then levelled off around the mid-400s, briefly dipping after 2008, before reaching their peak of roughly 475 megatonnes CO2e in 2024.

Historic Fluorinated Gases (F-gases) Emissions

F-gas emissions were close to zero through most of the record, reaching only around 6 megatonnes CO2e by 1991. They rose rapidly through the 1990s and accelerated after the turn of the century, increasing from about 46 megatonnes CO2e in 1999 to a peak of roughly 570 megatonnes CO2e in 2024.

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.

  • Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
  • 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 Potential

Total 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.

Crabon Dioxide (CO2)

CO2 includes emissions from fossil fuels and industry (FFI), and from land-use, land-use-change, and forestry (LULUCF).

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 Emissions
 IPCC: 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: Megatonne
 Wikipedia: Global warming potential

Tiny help keeps us going

10,000 people are using Climate Change Tracker for free every month. A tiny monthly donation keeps us going!

One-timeMonthly
Apple Pay, Credit Card, and more.
Donate €10/month

Cancel anytime. Payments processed by Stripe.com. You can manage, upgrade, cancel, and download receipts in our self service portal on Stripe. Using Stripe you agree to Stripe's Privacy Policy.

More ways to donate

About the Data

National CO2 emissions data through 2024 is from the Global Carbon Project and covers fossil sources and land-use change. Emissions data through 2024 for CH4, N2O and F-gases comes from the PRIMAP-hist dataset, which combines several published sources into historical emissions time series.

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.

PRIMAP-hist The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series (1750-2024)
Update cycle: Every few monthsDelay: Less than 1 yearCredits: Gütschow, J.; Busch, D.; Pflüger, M. (2025): The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series v2.7 (1750-2024). zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.17090760

⚠️