Colombia's Yearly Greenhouse Gas Emissions in CO₂ Equivalent
Key Insights
Early Industrialization and Oil Discovery
Colombia's journey through industrialization began in the early 20th century, marked by the completion of the Panama Canal in 1914 and the discovery of the Barrancabermeja oil field in 1921. These events catalyzed industrial growth and increased fossil fuel consumption, leading to a rise in CO₂ emissions. The burgeoning oil industry also contributed to methane emissions, setting the stage for Colombia's evolving greenhouse gas profile.
Land Use Changes and Agriculture
The mid-20th century saw significant land-use changes, particularly with the expansion of coffee cultivation in the 1940s. This led to deforestation, releasing stored carbon and increasing CO₂ emissions. The inauguration of the Chivor Hydroelectric Plant in 1968 marked a shift towards cleaner energy, although initial construction contributed to methane emissions. The 1985 Nevado del Ruiz eruption temporarily spiked CO₂ emissions, highlighting the impact of natural events on Colombia's emissions landscape.
Policy Shifts and Environmental Reforms
The 1991 constitutional reform introduced stricter environmental policies, aiming to curb deforestation and promote sustainable practices. This period also saw fluctuations in emissions due to natural disasters, such as the 1999 earthquake. The early 2000s witnessed the expansion of the palm oil industry, further impacting land-use emissions. However, the 2016 peace agreement with FARC facilitated reforestation efforts, contributing to a gradual reduction in emissions.
Recent Developments and Future Outlook
In recent years, Colombia has made strides in reducing emissions through policy initiatives like the 2019 national carbon tax and the expansion of renewable energy projects in 2021. These efforts have contributed to a measurable decrease in CO₂ emissions. However, ongoing deforestation in the Amazon region remains a significant challenge, underscoring the need for continued environmental stewardship to mitigate future emissions.
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)
- Moderate: above 2.5 tonnes
- 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 generated using a large language model (LLM) using a structured approach to improve the accuracy. This included 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.