Guatemala's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
Guatemala's CO2 emissions totalled around 42.2 megatonnes CO2e in 2024. Land-use was the largest source, at roughly 22.4 megatonnes CO2 or 52.9% of national emissions, declining by about 1.9 megatonnes CO2 per year over the ten years to 2024. Oil contributed around 17.4 megatonnes CO2 (41.1%) and rose by about 0.8 annually. Other fossil sources accounted for 1.3 megatonnes CO2 (3.1%) and increased slightly, while coal contributed 1.2 megatonnes CO2 (2.8%) and fell sharply. Gas did not contribute in 2024.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions were negligible through the early 1990s, remaining below around 0.05 megatonnes CO2. They began to matter from the late 1990s, rising from roughly 0.04 megatonnes CO2 in 1999 to a peak of about 4.7 in 2016. Emissions then declined substantially, reaching around 1.2 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions began at around 0.6 megatonnes CO2 in 1950 and rose to roughly 4.4 by 1979, before easing to about 3.3 in 1987. They then climbed to nearly 9 megatonnes CO2 in the early 2000s and were broadly stable until 2014. Growth accelerated thereafter, reaching a peak of around 17.4 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions only appeared in the early 1980s, beginning at around 0.03 megatonnes CO2 in 1981. They reached their high point of roughly 0.06 megatonnes CO2 in 1983, then fell to about 0.02 by 1991. A small recovery followed, ending at around 0.02 megatonnes CO2 in 1997.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions were around 10 megatonnes CO2 in the mid-19th century and fluctuated between roughly 4 and 13 through the 1920s. They surged to nearly 60 by 1952, then fell to around 25 in 1968. Emissions later varied widely, peaking at about 123 megatonnes CO2 in 1983, before declining overall to around 22.4 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were near zero in the 19th century and remained small through the mid-1950s, reaching around 0.04 megatonnes CO2 in 1955. They rose gradually thereafter, with an early high of about 0.27 in 1979. Growth resumed after the mid-1980s, peaking at roughly 1.7 megatonnes CO2 in 2022 before ending at around 1.3 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.