Mozambique's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
Mozambique's anthropogenic CO2 emissions totalled around 20.6 megatonnes CO2e in 2024. Land-use was the largest source, at about 12.0 megatonnes CO2 (58.3%), declining by roughly 2.1 megatonnes CO2 per year over the ten years to 2024. Oil contributed 5.4 megatonnes CO2 (26.2%) and gas 1.9 (9.4%), both rising. Other fossil emissions were 1.2 megatonnes CO2 (6.0%) and rising, while coal was 0.04 megatonnes CO2 (0.2%) and falling.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions began at around 0.04 megatonnes CO2 in the late 1920s, then rose sharply to about 1.4 by 1957. They peaked at roughly 1.7 megatonnes CO2 in 1971 before falling to around 0.2 in the mid-1980s. Since then they have remained low and variable, ending at about 0.04 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions were negligible in the late 1920s but rose to around 1.7 megatonnes CO2 by the early 1970s. They then fluctuated and fell to roughly 0.7 in 1991, before climbing strongly after the early 2000s. Oil peaked at about 6.0 megatonnes CO2 in 2016 and ended at around 5.4 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions remained near zero through most of the twentieth century and were still only around 0.1 megatonnes CO2 in 2008. They then increased rapidly, reaching a peak of roughly 2.2 megatonnes CO2 in 2023. Emissions eased slightly to around 1.9 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions fell from about 4.7 megatonnes CO2 in the early 1850s to net removals of around 4.1 by 1916. They then rose sharply, exceeding 40 megatonnes CO2 by the mid-1950s, before declining through the 1960s and 1970s. Emissions surged again after the early 1990s, peaking at roughly 65.2 megatonnes CO2 in 2004, then fell to around 12.0 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions began at roughly 0.01 megatonnes CO2 in the late 1920s and rose to around 0.3 by 1973. They then declined to near zero by 1993 before increasing again, particularly after 2011. Emissions peaked at about 1.9 megatonnes CO2 in 2022 and ended at around 1.2 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.