India's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
India's CO2 emissions totalled around 3,100 megatonnes CO2e in 2024. Coal dominated, at roughly 2,100 megatonnes CO2 and 68.2% of national emissions, rising by about 69 megatonnes CO2 per year over the ten years to 2024. Oil contributed around 747 megatonnes CO2 (24.2%) and gas 149 megatonnes CO2 (4.8%), both rising. Other Fossil emissions were about 189 megatonnes CO2 (6.1%) and increasing. Land-use was a net removal of around 100 megatonnes CO2, equivalent to -3.2% of the total, with removals increasing.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions were below 1 megatonne CO2 in the late 1850s and rose gradually to around 60 megatonnes CO2 by 1954. Growth then accelerated, reaching about 670 megatonnes CO2 in 2004. Since then, emissions have climbed rapidly, reaching their peak of roughly 2,100 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions began at zero in the late 1850s and remained small until the middle of the twentieth century, reaching around 14 megatonnes CO2 by 1956. They then rose steadily, accelerating after the 1980s and passing roughly 370 megatonnes CO2 by 2006. Oil emissions reached a 2024 peak of around 747 megatonnes CO2.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions were effectively zero through much of the historical period and remained around 7 megatonnes CO2 in 1985. They then rose steadily for nearly four decades, reaching their highest level of roughly 149 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions began at roughly 117 megatonnes CO2 in 1851 and declined to around 69 megatonnes CO2 by 1908. They then rose sharply, peaking at approximately 445 megatonnes CO2 in 1959. Emissions subsequently declined over the long term, becoming a net removal of around 100 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other Fossil emissions were very small in the early record, although they rose to roughly 10 megatonnes CO2 in the late 1970s before falling back. They increased more consistently from around 9 megatonnes CO2 in 1980, accelerating after 2004. Emissions reached their 2024 peak of about 189 megatonnes CO2.
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.