Lithuania's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
Lithuania's CO2 emissions totalled around 14.2 megatonnes CO2e in 2024. Oil dominated, at around 8.4 megatonnes CO2 and 59% of emissions, rising by about 0.13 megatonnes CO2 per year over the ten years to 2024. Gas contributed around 3.0 megatonnes CO2 (21.5%) and coal 0.4 (2.7%), both declining. Land-use emitted around 1.6 megatonnes CO2 (11.5%) and rose, while other fossil sources were 0.8 megatonnes CO2 (5.3%) and broadly stable.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions were negligible in the nineteenth century, then rose to around 3.2 megatonnes CO2 by the mid-1950s. They fluctuated around 3 megatonnes for several decades and peaked at roughly 4.2 megatonnes CO2 in 1988. Emissions then fell sharply in the early 1990s, reaching around 0.4 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions began near zero and became more significant after the 1920s. They rose rapidly from around 0.4 megatonnes CO2 in 1925 to nearly 27 megatonnes by the early 1980s, peaking at roughly 27.9 megatonnes CO2 in 1985. They subsequently declined and fluctuated at lower levels, ending at around 8.4 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions remained near zero until the mid-1950s, then climbed from around 0.3 to over 8 megatonnes CO2 by 1988. They peaked at roughly 10.9 megatonnes CO2 in 1991 before declining overall, despite some variation. Gas emissions ended at around 3.0 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions were high in the nineteenth century, at around 14 megatonnes CO2, before declining through the first half of the twentieth century. They became net removals around 1960, then varied widely, reaching net emissions of about 8.4 megatonnes CO2 in 1994 and removals of roughly 17.6 megatonnes in 2000. Land-use ended as emissions of around 1.6 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were negligible until the mid-twentieth century, rising from around 0.2 megatonnes CO2 in 1958 to about 1.8 by the late 1970s. They peaked at roughly 2.3 megatonnes CO2 in 1989, then generally declined with fluctuations. Emissions were around 0.8 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
Keep us going and growing
10,000 people are using Climate Change Tracker for free every month. A tiny monthly donation keeps us going!
Cancel anytime. Payments processed by Stripe.com. You can manage, upgrade, cancel, and download receipts in our self service portal on Stripe. Using Stripe you agree to Stripe's Privacy Policy.
More ways to donate
via PayPal
via DonorboxAbout the Data
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.