Jamaica's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
In 2024, Jamaica's CO2 emissions totalled around 8.0 megatonnes CO2e. Oil dominated at roughly 6.4 megatonnes CO2, or 79.6% of the national total, followed by gas at 1.5 megatonnes CO2 (18.3%). Coal contributed 0.24 megatonnes CO2 (3.0%) and other fossil sources 0.36 megatonnes CO2 (4.5%), while land-use was a net sink of 0.43 megatonnes CO2 (-5.3%). Over the ten years to 2024, oil declined, coal edged up, other fossil emissions were nearly stable, and land-use moved further towards net removals; no ten-year direction is available for gas.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions were very small through the mid-1980s, after fluctuating around negligible levels in the earlier record. They rose to around 0.19 megatonnes CO2 by 1999, then fell to roughly 0.07 in 2006. Emissions subsequently recovered, peaking at about 0.28 megatonnes CO2 in 2021, before ending at around 0.24 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions rose from around 0.2 megatonnes CO2 in 1950 to nearly 9 in 1978, before dropping to roughly 5 by the mid-1980s. They then climbed again, reaching a record peak of about 11.2 megatonnes CO2 in 2006. Emissions generally declined afterwards, despite variation, ending at around 6.4 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas has been a comparatively small contributor across Jamaica's history, cumulatively accounting for around 7.7 megatonnes CO2. By 2024, gas emissions had reached approximately 1.5 megatonnes CO2.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions varied substantially over time. They rose from around 0.2 megatonnes CO2 in 1903 to nearly 3.7 by 1944, then declined towards low levels by the mid-1970s. Emissions later increased sharply, peaking at about 12.8 megatonnes CO2 in 1999, before falling to a net removal of around 0.43 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were negligible until around 1950, then rose to roughly 0.2 megatonnes CO2 by the early 1970s before falling back. They increased gradually from around 0.07 megatonnes CO2 in 1980, peaking at about 0.42 in 2015, and ended at roughly 0.36 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.