Lesotho's Yearly Greenhouse Gas Emissions in CO₂ Equivalent

✨ Key Insights

Early Emissions and Colonial Impact

Lesotho's greenhouse gas emissions have evolved significantly since the mid-19th century. The annexation by the British Empire in 1868 likely influenced land-use patterns, potentially increasing CO₂ emissions due to deforestation and land conversion. However, the exact impact remains difficult to quantify. Throughout the early 20th century, emissions from land use and land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) gradually increased, reflecting shifts in agricultural practices and land management.

Post-Independence Changes and Livestock Expansion

Following independence in 1966, Lesotho experienced changes in national policies that may have affected emissions. The 1980s saw a notable expansion in livestock farming, contributing to a rise in methane emissions due to increased cattle and sheep numbers. This period marked a significant shift in the country's greenhouse gas profile, with methane becoming a more prominent component of total emissions.

Modern Developments and Renewable Energy

In recent decades, Lesotho has seen fluctuations in emissions due to various factors. The introduction of modern agricultural techniques in 2002 likely led to increased nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizer use. However, the country's investment in renewable energy initiatives starting in 2010 aimed to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, potentially curbing CO₂ emissions over time. The severe drought in 2015 and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 also impacted emissions, with the latter causing a temporary decrease in CO₂ emissions due to reduced industrial activity and transportation.

Background

Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are the main drivers of human-induced warming. In the scientific literature, human-induced emissions are often referred to as anthropogenic emissions.

CO₂ Fossil Fuels and Industry (CO₂ FFI)
CO₂ Land-Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (CO₂ LULUCF)
Methane (CH₄)
Moderate: above 2.5 tonnes
Nitrous oxide (N₂O)
Fluorinated gases (F-gases)

Emissions from all different gases are expressed in CO₂-equivalent units to make it possible to compare the relative emissions from these different gases. CO₂-equivalents are calculated using the global warming potentials of the respective gases, in this case using a 100-year time horizon.

Wikipedia: Global Warming Potential

Total Historic Share

CO₂ From Fossil Fuels and Industry

The sources are mostly fossil-fuel combustion emissions from coal, oil, and gas, as well as emissions from industrial processes such as cement production. Cement also absorbs CO₂ out of the atmosphere through carbonation, which reduces emissions by about 0.8 Gt per year and is included here.

CO₂ From Land-Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry

The main driver of these emissions is deforestation, which includes logging and forest degradation, as well as other land-use change activities. The emissions also take into account the absorption of CO₂ by processes that remove CO₂ from the atmosphere, such as afforestation and reforestation. It is the net effect that is indicated here.

Methane (CH₄)

Methane emissions are caused by human activities such as rearing livestock, agricultural practices, and fugitive fossil fuel emissions.

Nitrous Oxide (N₂O)

Common sources of these emissions are fossil fuel emissions and the agricultural use of synthetic fertilizer and manure.

Fluorinated Gases (F-gases)

Fluorinated gases are a group of gases defined by UNFCCC: hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), and nitrogen trifluoride (NF3). Fluorinated gases are also known as halogenated gases.

Wikipedia: Greenhouse Gas Emissions
IPCC: Annual Report 6, 5.2.1 5.2 Historical Trends, Variability and Budgets of CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O

Units and Measures

CO₂-equivalent emissions are expressed in the total weight in megatonnes per year. 1 Megatonne is equal to 1 million tonnes.

Wikipedia: Megatonne
Wikipedia: Global warming potential

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About the Data

The last available year in all the emission datasets is 2023. CO₂ emissions data is from the Global Carbon Project. It contains national CO₂ emissions from fossil sources and land-use change. Emissions from CH₄, N₂O and F-gases come from the PRIMAP-Hist dataset. It is a rich dataset that combines several published sources to create a historical emissions time series for various greenhouse gases.

The Key Insights paragraph was generated using a large language model (LLM) using a structured approach to improve the accuracy. This included separating the context generation from the interpretation and narrative.

Data Sources

Global Carbon Budget 2024 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 et al., 2024, ESSD. Friedlingstein, P., O'Sullivan, M., Jones, M. W., Andrew, R. M., Hauck, J., Landschützer, P., Le Quéré, C., Li, H., Luijkx, I. T., Olsen, A., Peters, G. P., Peters, W., Pongratz, J., Schwingshackl, C., Sitch, S., Canadell, J. G., Ciais, P., Jackson, R. B., Alin, S. R., Arneth, A., Arora, V., Bates, N. R., Becker, M., Bellouin, N., Berghoff, C. F., Bittig, H. C., Bopp, L., Cadule, P., Campbell, K., Chamberlain, M. A., Chandra, N., Chevallier, F., Chini, L. P., Colligan, T., Decayeux, J., Djeutchouang, L., Dou, X., Duran Rojas, C., Enyo, K., Evans, W., Fay, A., Feely, R. A., Ford, D. J., Foster, A., Gasser, T., Gehlen, M., Gkritzalis, T., Grassi, G., Gregor, L., Gruber, N., Gürses, Ö., Harris, I., Hefner, M., Heinke, J., Hurtt, G. C., Iida, Y., Ilyina, T., Jacobson, A. R., Jain, A., Jarníková, T., Jersild, A., Jiang, F., Jin, Z., Kato, E., Keeling, R. F., Klein Goldewijk, K., Knauer, J., Korsbakken, J. I., Lauvset, S. K., Lefèvre, N., Liu, Z., Liu, J., Ma, L., Maksyutov, S., Marland, G., Mayot, N., McGuire, P., Metzl, N., Monacci, N. M., Morgan, E. J., Nakaoka, S.-I., Neill, C., Niwa, Y., Nützel, T., Olivier, L., Ono, T., Palmer, P. I., Pierrot, D., Qin, Z., Resplandy, L., Roobaert, A., Rosan, T. M., Rödenbeck, C., Schwinger, J., Smallman, T. L., Smith, S., Sospedra-Alfonso, R., Steinhoff, T., Sun, Q., Sutton, A. J., Séférian, R., Takao, S., Tatebe, H., Tian, H., Tilbrook, B., Torres, O., Tourigny, E., Tsujino, H., Tubiello, F., van der Werf, G., Wanninkhof, R., Wang, X., Yang, D., Yang, X., Yu, Z., Yuan, W., Yue, X., Zaehle, S., Zeng, N., and Zeng, J.: Global Carbon Budget 2024, Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss. [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2024-519, in review, 2024.

PRIMAP-hist The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series (1750-2023)
Update cycle: Every few monthsDelay: Less than 1 yearCredits: Gütschow, Johannes; Busch, Daniel; Pflüger, Mika (2024): The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series (1750-2023) v2.6. Zenodo.