Latvia's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
In 2024, Latvia's emissions across these sources totalled around 9.4 megatonnes CO2e. Oil was largest at about 4.2 megatonnes CO2, or 44.5%, followed by land-use at around 2.9 megatonnes CO2 (31.2%) and gas at 1.6 megatonnes CO2 (17.4%). Over the ten years to 2024, oil edged up, while gas, land-use and coal declined; other fossil emissions increased. Oil dominated Latvia's emissions, with land-use and gas also substantial contributors.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions began near zero in the nineteenth century and rose to around 0.5 megatonnes CO2 by the early 1930s. They climbed to nearly 3 megatonnes CO2 by the late 1950s, then varied around that level. Coal peaked at roughly 4 megatonnes CO2 in 1986 before declining steeply to around 0.05 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions were negligible in the nineteenth century but rose from around 0.3 megatonnes CO2 in the mid-1920s to over 17 megatonnes CO2 by the early 1980s. They peaked at roughly 18.5 megatonnes CO2 in 1985, then fell sharply through the mid-1990s. Oil emissions ended at around 4.2 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions remained near zero until the mid-twentieth century, then rose from around 0.2 megatonnes CO2 in 1957 to over 4.5 megatonnes CO2 by the late 1980s. They peaked at roughly 5.5 megatonnes CO2 in 1990 and subsequently declined, reaching around 1.6 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions began at about 7 megatonnes CO2 and stayed near that level through the nineteenth century, peaking at roughly 7.4 megatonnes CO2 in 1859. They then declined across the twentieth century, becoming net removals and reaching about -5.5 megatonnes CO2 in 1994. They later rebounded, ending at around 2.9 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were near zero until the mid-twentieth century. They rose to a peak of roughly 0.9 megatonnes CO2 in 1990, then dropped sharply to around 0.06 megatonnes CO2 by 1993. Emissions gradually increased thereafter and reached around 0.6 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.