Italy's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
In 2024, Italy's CO2 emissions totalled around 300 megatonnes CO2e. Oil was the largest source, at roughly 154 megatonnes CO2 and 51.5% of national emissions, followed by gas at around 125 megatonnes CO2 and 41.6%. Coal and Other Fossil each contributed about 11 megatonnes CO2, or 3.8%, while Land-use absorbed roughly 1.9 megatonnes CO2. Over the ten years to 2024, emissions fell from coal, oil, gas and Other Fossil, while the land-use sink weakened.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions rose from near zero in 1860 to around 40 megatonnes CO2 by 1929, then fluctuated for several decades. They climbed again from the mid-1970s, peaking at roughly 72 megatonnes CO2 in 2004. A steep decline followed after 2012, ending at around 11.3 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions were negligible until the years after 1945, then rose rapidly to roughly 254 megatonnes CO2 by 1972. They remained broadly high through the following decades, reaching a peak of around 277 megatonnes CO2 in 1979. Since the early 2000s they have declined overall, ending at about 154 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions remained close to zero until the late 1940s, then grew steadily through the following decades. Growth accelerated from the late 1980s, reaching around 163 megatonnes CO2 by 2006 and peaking at roughly 167 megatonnes CO2 in 2008. Emissions then declined overall to around 125 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions began at around 10 megatonnes CO2 in the early 1850s and varied around positive levels for more than a century, peaking at roughly 22 megatonnes CO2 in 1969. They then shifted into net absorption during the 1970s, reaching about minus 32 megatonnes CO2 in 1992. The sink weakened thereafter, ending at minus 1.9 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other Fossil emissions were low in the early record, varying below around 3 megatonnes CO2 through the late 1940s. They rose to roughly 17 megatonnes CO2 by 1973, then increased again from the mid-1980s and peaked at around 27 megatonnes CO2 in 2007. They declined afterwards to about 11.5 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.