Fiji's Sources of N2O Emissions
Key Insights
Agricultural Dominance in Emissions
Fiji's N₂O emissions have been predominantly driven by agriculture, which has consistently been the largest contributor over the decades. The expansion of the sugar industry in the 1960s significantly increased emissions due to land clearing and fertilizer use. This trend continued into the late 20th century, with agriculture accounting for a substantial portion of the country's total N₂O emissions. However, recent decades have seen a decline in agricultural emissions, possibly linked to political and economic instability, such as the coups in 2000 and 2006, which disrupted agricultural practices.
Energy and Industry Contributions
While agriculture has been the main source of N₂O emissions, the energy and industry sectors have also played a role, albeit smaller. The energy sector saw a gradual increase in emissions, reflecting Fiji's growing energy needs. The industrial sector, although contributing less, has shown a steady rise in emissions, particularly from the mid-20th century onwards. These increases are indicative of Fiji's industrialization and energy consumption patterns, although they remain minor compared to agricultural emissions.
Impact of Natural Disasters
Natural events, such as Cyclone Winston in 2016, have also influenced Fiji's emissions profile. The cyclone caused significant damage to infrastructure and agriculture, leading to changes in land use and recovery activities that likely impacted emissions. While the exact effects on N₂O emissions are complex and difficult to quantify, such events underscore the vulnerability of Fiji's emissions landscape to natural disasters.
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 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
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.