Mexico's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
In 2024, Mexico's emissions from these sources totalled around 444 megatonnes CO2e. Oil was largest at roughly 219 megatonnes CO2, or 49.4%, followed by gas at around 172 megatonnes CO2 (38.6%). Coal contributed about 40 megatonnes CO2 (9%), other fossil sources 30 megatonnes CO2 (6.7%), while land-use was a net removal of roughly 17 megatonnes CO2 (-3.7%). Over the ten years to 2024, oil and coal declined, gas and other fossil emissions rose, and the land-use sink strengthened.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions were negligible in the nineteenth century, rising to roughly 7 megatonnes CO2 by 1970. They then climbed strongly, reaching a peak of about 56 megatonnes CO2 in 2011, before declining. In 2024, coal emissions were around 40 megatonnes CO2.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions began near zero in the 1890s, with early fluctuations including a high of roughly 89 megatonnes CO2 in 1921. They rose rapidly from the late 1960s, peaking at about 291 megatonnes CO2 in 2005, then declined overall to around 219 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions remained close to zero until the mid-twentieth century, reaching only around 3 megatonnes CO2 by 1957. Growth accelerated thereafter, rising from roughly 57 megatonnes CO2 in 1995 to a peak of about 172 megatonnes CO2 in 2023. Emissions were around 172 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions began at roughly 16 megatonnes CO2 in the early 1850s and rose to around 86 megatonnes CO2 by the late 1890s. They fluctuated substantially thereafter, peaking at about 196 megatonnes CO2 in 1990, before falling persistently. By 2024, land-use had become a net removal of around 17 megatonnes CO2.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions first became visible around the late 1920s and remained below 1 megatonne CO2 through the mid-1940s. They rose to roughly 26 megatonnes CO2 by 1982, fell during the 1980s, then increased again. They peaked at about 32 megatonnes CO2 in 2021 and stood near 30 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.