Myanmar's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
In 2024, Myanmar's CO2 emissions were dominated by land-use emissions, at about 85 megatonnes CO2e, or 72.9% of the national total, declining by around 4.5 megatonnes CO2e per year over the ten years to 2024. Oil contributed roughly 17 megatonnes CO2 (14.8%) and rose by about 0.7 annually; gas supplied around 8 megatonnes CO2 (6.8%) but edged down. Coal and Other Fossil each contributed about 3 megatonnes CO2, with both increasing.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions began near zero in the late 1920s and rose to roughly 1.1 megatonnes CO2 by 1959, before falling to almost zero in the early 1990s. They then increased unevenly, peaking at around 4.3 megatonnes CO2 in 2020, and ended at about 3.3 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions were about 3 megatonnes CO2 in the late 1920s, but fell to near zero by the late 1940s. They subsequently rose gradually, then accelerated after 2009, reaching a peak of roughly 21 megatonnes CO2 in 2018. Emissions declined thereafter to around 17 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions were negligible until the 1970s. They rose from around 0.2 megatonnes CO2 in 1973 to more than 2 megatonnes CO2 by 2001, then increased further while fluctuating. They peaked at roughly 10.8 megatonnes CO2 in 2015 and stood at about 8 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions began at roughly 45 megatonnes CO2 in the early 1850s and climbed above 150 by the 1910s, before dropping to around 60 in the mid-1920s. They later fluctuated sharply, peaking at nearly 600 megatonnes CO2 in 1969. Emissions ended at about 85 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other Fossil emissions were near zero until the late 1920s and rose slowly to around 0.7 megatonnes CO2 by 1980. After declining through the early 1990s, they remained low until accelerating after 2013. They peaked at roughly 3.1 megatonnes CO2 in 2022 and were about 3.1 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.