New Zealand's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
In 2024, New Zealand's emissions across these sources totalled around 34 megatonnes CO2e. Oil was the largest source, at roughly 19 megatonnes CO2 and 55.4% of emissions, declining by about 0.37% yearly over the ten years to 2024. Coal and gas each contributed around 6 megatonnes CO2, or 17% apiece; coal was almost unchanged, while gas fell by 3.56% yearly. Other fossil sources and land-use contributed about 1.9 and 1.6 megatonnes CO2, respectively, and both declined.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions rose from around 0.4 megatonnes CO2 in 1878 to roughly 5 in 1914, then fell to about 3.5 by 1933. They recovered to nearly 7 by 1960, declined again, and then climbed to a peak of roughly 9 megatonnes CO2 in 2005. Emissions fell overall thereafter, reaching around 5.9 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions were negligible until the mid-1940s, then rose rapidly from zero in 1946 to about 8.6 megatonnes CO2 in 1970. They continued increasing overall, though with fluctuations, and peaked at nearly 21 megatonnes CO2 in 2019. By 2024, oil emissions had eased to around 18.9 megatonnes CO2.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions remained near zero until around 1970, then increased rapidly through the 1970s and 1980s, reaching about 8 megatonnes CO2 by 1987. They varied at relatively high levels thereafter, peaking at roughly 10.4 megatonnes CO2 in 2001, before declining overall. Gas emissions ended at around 5.9 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions began at about 15 megatonnes CO2 in 1851 and rose overall to roughly 48 by 1958. They continued upward to a peak of nearly 67 megatonnes CO2 in 1980, then declined sharply, falling below zero to a low around 2005 before recovering. Land-use emissions were about 1.6 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were negligible for much of the period before the mid-1960s, reaching around 0.4 megatonnes CO2 in 1964. They then rose overall, despite variation, to a peak of roughly 2.9 megatonnes CO2 in 2010. Emissions subsequently declined and ended at around 1.9 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.