France's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
France's CO2 emissions totalled around 242 megatonnes CO2e in 2024. Oil was by far the largest source, at roughly 171 megatonnes CO2 or 70.4% of national emissions, followed by gas at about 63 megatonnes CO2 (25.9%) and coal at around 19 megatonnes CO2 (8%). Other fossil sources contributed about 11 megatonnes CO2 (4.7%), while land-use was a net removal of roughly 22 megatonnes CO2 (-8.9%). Over the ten years to 2024, every fossil source declined, while the land-use removal became smaller.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions rose from around 20 megatonnes CO2 in 1851 to more than 200 by the late 1920s, peaking at roughly 234 megatonnes CO2 in 1930. They fluctuated sharply through the mid-1960s before a long decline, falling from about 205 megatonnes CO2 in 1964 to around 19 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions were negligible for much of the period before 1946, though they reached about 20 megatonnes CO2 in 1938. They then grew rapidly, rising from around 7 megatonnes CO2 in 1946 to over 340 by 1972, and peaked at roughly 369 megatonnes CO2 in 1973. They subsequently declined to around 171 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions began near zero and remained very small until the late 1950s. They then climbed steadily from about 1.4 megatonnes CO2 in 1958 to more than 90 by 2006, reaching a peak of roughly 96 megatonnes CO2 in 2010. Gas emissions then declined, ending at around 63 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Net land-use emissions moved between emissions and removals through much of the record. They fell from around 21 megatonnes CO2 in 1851 to net removals by the late 1920s, then varied substantially, peaking at roughly 69 megatonnes CO2 in 1991. Net land-use emissions returned to removals and stood at around -22 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were low through the first half of the twentieth century, rising from around 3 megatonnes CO2 in 1949 to nearly 19 by 1976. They peaked at roughly 21 megatonnes CO2 in 1974, then fluctuated around the high teens through the 1990s and early 2000s. Emissions declined thereafter to around 11 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.