Democratic Republic of the Congo's Sources of N2O Emissions
Key Insights
Agriculture Dominates The Trend
Agriculture drives the Democratic Republic of the Congo's nitrous oxide profile, contributing just over 80% of national emissions. After a long, low baseline through the early 20th century, emissions surged during the 1940s, then eased through the post-war decades. Since the early 1970s they have trended upward again, averaging around 10 megatonnes and recently reaching the low teens. Overall, agriculture shows gentle growth with some variation rather than sharp swings.
Shifts In Other Sources
"Other" sources make up around 13% and show a distinct pattern: a sudden jump in the early 1980s followed by a gradual easing, generally hovering between roughly 2 and 5 megatonnes and ending closer to 3. Energy remains a small share (around 4%) but has edged up since the 1980s to around 1 megatonne. Waste is still well below 1 megatonne, yet it has been rising since the late 1990s. Industry is negligible throughout.
What The Trajectory Implies
Looking ahead, agriculture's steady rise is the central driver and must be the priority to bend the national trend. "Other" sources have softened since their 1980s spike, but given their size, stabilizing and further reducing them would add meaningful impact alongside tackling agriculture.
Background
The chart shows a national breakdown by source of the yearly nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from human activities and processes, expressed as weight in megatonnes (Mt). Human-induced emissions are the main driver of the increasing atmospheric nitrous oxide that is warming our planet. The sources of human nitrous oxide emissions are
- Agriculture
- Energy
- Industry
- Waste
- Other
Agriculture
Emissions related to agriculture are mainly from the use of synthetic fertilizers and manure management.
Synthetic fertilizer, used for agricultural processes, contains a lot of nitrogen. That nitrogen in the soil reacts and causes considerable N2O emissions. The use of excess fertilizer, meaning more fertilizer than the plants can use to grow, causes even higher relative emissions. Applying the right amount of fertilizer at the right time can reduce N2O emissions. There are many technical solutions to reduce emissions while keeping, or even increasing, agricultural yields.
When manure is left on the field or otherwise managed in dry processes, it emits considerable amounts of nitrous oxide. Manure can be managed by wet processes, which reduces nitrous oxide emissions but increases methane emissions. Some technical solutions focus on modifying the animal feed to reduce the nitrogen in the manure, thereby reducing nitrous oxide emissions.
Energy, Industry, Waste, and Other
All non-agricultural categories together have much lower emissions than agricultural emissions alone.
N2O emissions related to energy are almost all from the combustion of fossil fuels. For example, the combustion of fossil fuels in power plants, cars, and airplanes not only causes CO2 emissions but also emits nitrous oxide (N2O). Any advances to reducing fossil fuel dependency will thus also reduce nitrous oxide emissions.
Most industry-related emissions are from the chemical industry for producing fertilizer, nylon, and similar products. Technologies are available to reduce emissions in these processes.
Nitrous oxide emissions from waste come from, for example, wastewater treatment and landfills.
Wikipedia: Nitrous oxideIPCC: AR6, 5.16 Anthropogenic nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions
Units and Measures
N2O 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. N2O emissions 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 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
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.