Luxembourg's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
Luxembourg emitted around 7.2 megatonnes CO2e in 2024. Oil dominated emissions at about 5.4 megatonnes CO2, or 75.5% of the national total, followed by gas at roughly 1.2 megatonnes CO2 (17.2%). Other fossil sources contributed around 0.25 megatonnes CO2 (3.5%), coal 0.15 megatonnes CO2 (2.1%), and land-use 0.12 megatonnes CO2 (1.7%). Over the ten years to 2024, oil, gas, coal and other fossil emissions all declined, while land-use emissions edged up.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions were already around 7.2 megatonnes CO2 in 1950 and rose to their historic peak of roughly 10.8 megatonnes CO2 in 1960. They then declined markedly through the late 1980s, briefly rebounded, and collapsed to around 0.4 megatonnes CO2 by 1998. Coal emissions continued to edge down, reaching about 0.15 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions began at around 0.17 megatonnes CO2 in 1950 and grew rapidly from the 1960s, reaching roughly 4.4 megatonnes CO2 in 1972. After falling to around 2.7 megatonnes CO2 in the early 1980s, they climbed again to a peak of about 8.4 megatonnes CO2 in 2005. They then declined to around 5.4 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions were negligible in the mid-1960s, at around 0.01 megatonnes CO2, but rose to roughly 1.1 megatonnes CO2 by 1979. After a short decline in the early 1980s, emissions increased strongly through the early 2000s and peaked at about 3.0 megatonnes CO2 in 2006. They subsequently fell to around 1.2 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions were around 0.36 megatonnes CO2 in the early 1850s and declined over the following century, becoming a net removal by the mid-20th century. They reached a low of roughly -0.24 megatonnes CO2 in 1959, then fluctuated upward to a peak of about 0.54 megatonnes CO2 in 1993. Emissions eased thereafter, ending at around 0.12 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were small, at around 0.03 megatonnes CO2 in 1945, and rose gradually through the following decades. Growth accelerated in the late 1980s, bringing emissions to a peak of roughly 0.60 megatonnes CO2 in 1990. They then declined gradually for several decades, with a sharper fall after 2021, reaching around 0.25 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.