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🇱🇾 Libya's Yearly Greenhouse Gas Emissions in CO₂ Equivalent

Libya's Yearly Greenhouse Gas Emissions in CO₂ Equivalent

Key Insights

2024 Emissions Profile

In 2024, CO2 was Libya's largest source of emissions, at around 65 megatonnes CO2 and 65.2% of the national total. Methane followed at about 26.5 megatonnes CO2e (26.7%), while F-gases contributed roughly 6.2 megatonnes CO2e (6.3%) and N2O 1.9 megatonnes CO2e (1.9%). Over the ten years to 2024, CO2 edged down, but methane and F-gases rose quickly and N2O increased slightly. Emissions were therefore dominated by CO2, with methane forming a substantial second source.

Historic Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Emissions

CO2 emissions were around zero through 1960, despite small fluctuations. They then rose strongly, reaching roughly 49 megatonnes CO2 in 1999, with intermittent dips. Emissions peaked at about 73 megatonnes CO2 in 2019, fell to around 36 in 2020, and recovered to approximately 65 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.

Historic Methane (CH4) Emissions

Methane emissions began at around 0.3 megatonnes CO2e in 1851 and remained low until the mid-20th century. They surged through the 1960s to a peak of roughly 126 megatonnes CO2e in 1969, then fell sharply to around 42 by 1982. They later fluctuated, reaching about 26.5 megatonnes CO2e in 2024. Methane's warming contribution since 1851 was around 12% larger than its emissions alone suggest, because methane's short atmospheric lifetime amplifies the warming impact when CH4 emissions are rising.

Historic Nitrous Oxide (N2O) Emissions

N2O emissions started at roughly 0.04 megatonnes CO2e in 1851 and increased slowly for more than a century. Growth accelerated during the 1970s, rising from around 0.6 to 1.1 megatonnes CO2e. Emissions then increased gradually, peaking at nearly 2 megatonnes CO2e in 2013, before reaching about 1.9 in 2024.

Historic Fluorinated Gases (F-gases) Emissions

F-gas emissions were effectively zero in the 19th century and remained very small until the 1960s. They rose gradually to around 0.5 megatonnes CO2e by 1999, then accelerated sharply after the turn of the century. Emissions reached their record high of approximately 6.2 megatonnes CO2e in 2024.

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.

  • Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
  • Methane (CH4)
  • 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

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.

Crabon Dioxide (CO2)

CO2 includes emissions from fossil fuels and industry (FFI), and from land-use, land-use-change, and forestry (LULUCF).

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

National CO2 emissions data through 2024 is from the Global Carbon Project and covers fossil sources and land-use change. Emissions data through 2024 for CH4, N2O and F-gases comes from the PRIMAP-hist dataset, which combines several published sources into historical emissions time series.

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.

PRIMAP-hist The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series (1750-2024)
Update cycle: Every few monthsDelay: Less than 1 yearCredits: Gütschow, J.; Busch, D.; Pflüger, M. (2025): The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series v2.7 (1750-2024). zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.17090760

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