Denmark's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
In 2024, Denmark's emissions from these sources totalled around 31 megatonnes CO2e. Oil dominated at 21.5 megatonnes CO2 (69.2%). Gas, land-use, coal and other fossil contributed 3.6 (11.5%), 2.7 (8.6%), 1.8 (5.8%) and 1.5 megatonnes CO2 (4.9%). Over the ten years to 2024, oil rose by about 0.14 megatonnes CO2 per year, while every other source declined: gas by 0.47, coal 0.65, land-use 0.03 and other fossil 0.01 megatonnes CO2 per year.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal began at around 0.3 megatonnes CO2 in 1851, rising to roughly 21 megatonnes CO2 in 1947. After a variable decline, it climbed to 32.6 megatonnes CO2 in 1991, peaked at 35.1 megatonnes CO2 in 1996, and then fell sharply to 1.8 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Negligible until after 1945, oil rose from zero in 1947 to about 50 megatonnes CO2 in 1971 and peaked at 52.8 megatonnes CO2 in 1972. It fell to around 29.6 megatonnes CO2 by 1985, then declined gradually to 21.5 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions were near zero until the early 1980s, rising from around 0.03 megatonnes CO2 in 1983 to a peak of 11.2 megatonnes CO2 in 2003. They then declined, reaching 3.6 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions began at about 5.8 megatonnes CO2 in 1851 and peaked at 12.4 megatonnes CO2 in 1918. They then declined, reaching a net removal of 2.3 megatonnes CO2 in 1993, before reversing. Following a later high of 5.5 megatonnes CO2 in 2010, they ended at 2.7 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were small early on, falling from around 0.4 megatonnes CO2 in 1928 to 0.1 megatonnes CO2 in 1945. They climbed thereafter, peaking at 3.0 megatonnes CO2 in 1999, before easing to 1.5 megatonnes CO2 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.