Mauritania's Progress and Recent Impact

✨ Key Insights

Moderate Per Capita Emissions

Mauritania's recent per capita greenhouse gas emissions are rated as moderate, standing at approximately 3.76 tonnes per person per year. This level of emissions reflects the country's ongoing efforts to balance economic development with environmental sustainability. The moderate rating indicates that while emissions are not excessively high, there is still room for improvement to align with global climate goals. The country's initiatives in renewable energy, such as the commissioning of the Nouakchott wind farm in 2013 and the expansion of solar energy in 2018, have contributed positively by reducing reliance on fossil fuels.

Significant Methane Contributions

Methane emissions play a significant role in Mauritania's overall greenhouse gas profile, accounting for half of the total emissions. The primary source of methane is livestock, which is a crucial component of the country's agricultural sector. Efforts to manage and reduce methane emissions could have a substantial impact on the nation's overall emissions. The historical reliance on livestock, as well as the severe drought in 1983, have influenced methane levels, highlighting the importance of sustainable agricultural practices.

Rising Emissions Trend

Over the past decade, Mauritania's total greenhouse gas emissions have shown an upward trend, with an annual increase of approximately 2.42%. This rise is driven by various factors, including the expansion of the oil industry, marked by the Chinguetti oil field production in 2006, and the Banda Gas-to-Power Project initiated in 2015. These developments have increased fossil fuel consumption, contributing to higher CO₂ emissions. However, the country's commitment to renewable energy sources offers a pathway to mitigate this trend and work towards a more sustainable future.

Global Emissions Share

Mauritania's share of global emissions is relatively small, at 0.0332% of the total. While this may seem insignificant, it is essential to recognize that even small contributors collectively impact global emissions. The country's efforts in renewable energy and sustainable practices are crucial in setting an example for other nations with similar emission profiles. By continuing to invest in clean energy and reducing reliance on fossil fuels, Mauritania can further decrease its emissions and contribute to global climate change mitigation efforts.

Background

Recent per Capita Emissions

The Recent per Capita Emissions are a crucial indicator of a nation's greenhouse gas emissions. They are a fair measure for comparing the emissions of nations, taking into account the size of their populations.

Because any greenhouse gas emissions above 0 cause warming, the per capita emissions shouldn't be judged against the global average; they should be compared based on how far they are above 0. Therefore, our rating scale is:

Extremely High: above 10 tonnes per capita per year
Very High: above 7.5 tonnes
High: above 5 tonnes
Moderate: above 2.5 tonnes
Low: above 0 tonnes
Negative Emissions: under 0

The per capita emissions should be close to zero for each country, indicated here by the green & low areas.

Last Year Emissions

This is the total amount of CO₂, CH₄, N₂O, and F-Gases emissions of a nation in 2023 (last available year in the data) expressed in megatonnes of CO₂-equivalents. The gases have different atmospheric lifetimes (decay) and warming effects, for this reason, we use the GWP100 (100 year time horizon method) to calculate the global warming potential of CH₄, N₂O, and F-Gases to express them in CO₂-equivalents.

Wikipedia: Global Warming Potential

Last Year Share

This is a nation's share of the global emissions in 2023 (last available year in the data). For many countries this value can be quite small, especially when compared to nations like United States or China. It is easy and dangerous to jump to the conclusion that small shares of emissions don't matter. They matter as a group. Even small emitters can account for a significant amount of total emissions. Consider the following examples:

24 nations, each between 0.5 and 1.5% of the total emissions, make up 20% of the total emissions.
27 nations, each between 0.5 and 2% of the total emissions, make up 25% of the total emissions.
162 nations with a share below 0.5% make up 15% of the total.
3 nations, make 44% of the total emissions: China, United States and India. However, China and India together have a population of about 2.9 billion.

Per Capita Emissions are therefore the most crucial indicator to represent the impact of a nation regardless of its size.

Yearly Emissions Trend

This is a nation's trend per year over the last 10 years. It is a good indicator of the trajectory of national emissions and can be used as a simple framework to judge a nation's trend vs. international goals:

Stop warming around 1.5 °C: All nations together, and each nation, should drop emissions by 17% per year — 8,000 Megatonnes of CO₂ Equivalent per Year.
To achieve Net Zero in 2050 and to stop warming at ~1.7 °C: All nations should together, and each nation, should drop emissions by 4% per year — 2,100 Megatonnes of CO₂ Equivalent per Year.
Additionally, to return warming to pre-industrial levels almost all human-induced CO₂ has to be taken out of the atmosphere.

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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. Population data are also from Global Carbon Project where available, however, for many nations it doesn't have historic population going back to 1850. Those historic gaps are filled with population data from Our World in Data.

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.

Our World in Data Population - Our World in Data
Update cycle: YearlyDelay: 7 monthsCredits: HYDE (2023); Gapminder (2022); UN WPP (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data