Democratic Republic of the Congo's Yearly Greenhouse Gas Emissions in CO₂ Equivalent
Key Insights
Early Industrial Impact
The Democratic Republic of the Congo's emissions history reflects significant land-use changes, particularly during the establishment of the Congo Free State in 1885. This period saw extensive deforestation for resource extraction, contributing to increased CO₂ emissions. The impact of these activities is evident in the rising emissions from land-use changes, which have been a dominant source of greenhouse gases in the country.
Post-Independence Changes
Following independence in 1960, the DRC experienced political instability, affecting land management and emissions. The nationalization policies in the 1970s under Mobutu Sese Seko led to increased industrial activity, particularly in mining, which likely contributed to higher CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels. However, the data indicates that land-use changes remained the primary driver of emissions during this period.
Recent Trends and Challenges
In recent decades, the DRC has faced challenges from deforestation for agriculture and artisanal mining, which have contributed to rising emissions. The expansion of artisanal mining in 2010 increased methane emissions, while deforestation for agriculture in 2015 further elevated CO₂ levels. The ongoing oil exploration in Virunga National Park poses additional risks for future emissions. Despite these challenges, the DRC's emissions profile remains heavily influenced by land-use changes, underscoring the need for sustainable land management practices.
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.