Iraq's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
Iraq's CO2 emissions totalled roughly 235 megatonnes CO2e in 2024. Oil dominated, at around 148 megatonnes CO2 (62.8%), followed by other fossil sources at roughly 47 megatonnes CO2 (20.1%) and gas at nearly 39 megatonnes CO2 (16.5%). Over the ten years to 2024, oil, gas and other fossil emissions rose by about 5.6, 2.8 and 1.3 megatonnes CO2 per year. Land-use emissions fell by around 0.3 megatonnes CO2 per year, while coal remained negligible.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions were extremely small throughout Iraq's history, first appearing around 1927. They peaked at roughly 0.011 megatonnes CO2 in 1959, then declined to near zero by the late 1990s. Emissions remained minimal thereafter, ending at around 0.006 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions began at around 0.1 megatonnes CO2 in 1927 and rose unevenly to roughly 13 megatonnes CO2 by 1973, after reaching about 15 megatonnes in 1966. They then climbed substantially despite fluctuations, peaking near 114 megatonnes CO2 in 2018 before falling in 2020. They surged to a record roughly 148 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions were near zero until the early twentieth century and remained low but variable for decades, reaching roughly 6 megatonnes CO2 in 1996. They had fallen to around 1.9 megatonnes CO2 by 2004, then rose strongly and continuously. Gas emissions reached a record nearly 39 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions began at around 0.3 megatonnes CO2 in the mid-nineteenth century and rose to roughly 6 megatonnes by 1936. They then generally declined, becoming a net removal of nearly 6 megatonnes CO2 in 1996. Emissions later fluctuated, peaking at about 11 megatonnes CO2 in 2013, before ending at roughly 1.2 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were negligible until the mid-twentieth century, then rose sharply to nearly 23 megatonnes CO2 by 1976 and peaked at roughly 26 megatonnes in 1979. They fell to around 1 megatonne CO2 by 1993, before recovering and accelerating after 2008. Emissions reached a record about 47 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.