Egypt's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
Egypt's CO2 emissions totalled around 260 megatonnes CO2e in 2024. Oil was the largest source, at roughly 113 megatonnes CO2 or 43.5%, followed closely by gas at around 103 megatonnes CO2, or 39.5%. Oil edged down over the ten years to 2024, while gas rose by around 1.6 megatonnes CO2 a year. Other fossil sources contributed about 31 megatonnes CO2 (11.8%), coal 12 megatonnes CO2 (4.7%), and land-use 1.5 megatonnes CO2 (0.6%); all three increased.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions were near zero in the early twentieth century and remained small through the mid-1950s. They rose unevenly to around 3.4 megatonnes CO2 by 1993, then declined to roughly 1.5 in 2014. Emissions climbed sharply thereafter, peaking at about 13 megatonnes CO2 in 2018, before ending at around 12 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions began at negligible levels in 1911 and rose gradually before accelerating from the late 1930s through the early 2010s. They peaked at roughly 118 megatonnes CO2 in 2014, then fell to around 76 in 2019 and recovered. In 2024, oil emissions were about 113 megatonnes CO2.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions were negligible until the late twentieth century, despite occasional earlier increases. They rose rapidly from about 4 megatonnes CO2 in 1982 to roughly 81 in 2007, then continued upward with fluctuations. Gas emissions peaked at around 123 megatonnes CO2 in 2021 and ended at approximately 103 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions were low and variable through the early twentieth century, then rose from around 0.5 megatonnes CO2 in 1923 to roughly 3.6 in 1965. They fell into net removals around the late 1970s, before peaking at about 4.5 megatonnes CO2 in 1991. Emissions ended at around 1.5 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions began at around 0.04 megatonnes CO2 in 1928 and remained relatively low but variable for decades, reaching about 4.4 in 1976. They then rose strongly from roughly 3 megatonnes CO2 in 1987. Emissions peaked at around 32 megatonnes CO2 in 2023 and finished near 31 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.