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Nicaragua's Yearly Greenhouse Gas Emissions in CO₂ Equivalent

Name: Nicaragua's Yearly Greenhouse Gas Emissions in CO₂ Equivalent
Creator: Climate Change Tracker
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Key Insights

2024 Emissions Profile

In 2024, CO₂ was Nicaragua's largest emissions source at around 23.7 megatonnes CO₂, or 60.6% of the national total, declining by about 0.6 megatonnes CO₂ per year over the ten years to 2024. Methane contributed around 11.7 megatonnes CO₂e (29.9%) and rose by about 0.2 megatonnes CO₂e annually. N₂O reached roughly 3.4 megatonnes CO₂e (8.8%) and increased gradually, while F-gases remained small at around 0.3 megatonnes CO₂e (0.8%) but grew quickly.

Historic Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) Emissions

CO₂ emissions began at around 7.7 megatonnes CO₂ in 1851, fluctuating in the early record before rising to about 70.5 megatonnes CO₂ by the late 1950s. They then fell sharply, reaching roughly 21 megatonnes CO₂ in 1975, before climbing again to a record peak of about 90.7 megatonnes CO₂ in 1999. Emissions subsequently declined to around 23.7 megatonnes CO₂ in 2024.

Historic Methane (CH₄) Emissions

Methane emissions started at roughly 0.5 megatonnes CO₂e in 1851 and rose steadily to around 5.1 megatonnes CO₂e by the mid-1970s. They varied between about 4.4 and 6.6 megatonnes CO₂e through the following two decades, then increased strongly from the late 1990s. Methane peaked at around 11.7 megatonnes CO₂e in 2024. Methane's warming contribution since 1851 was around 73% larger than its emissions alone suggest, because methane's short atmospheric lifetime amplifies the warming impact when CH₄ emissions are rising.

Historic Nitrous Oxide (N₂O) Emissions

N₂O emissions were very low in 1851, at around 0.03 megatonnes CO₂e, and increased slowly until the mid-20th century. Growth accelerated thereafter, reaching around 1.8 megatonnes CO₂e by the late 1970s. Emissions then remained broadly stable for about two decades before rising again from the late 1990s, reaching a record roughly 3.4 megatonnes CO₂e in 2024.

Historic Fluorinated Gases (F-gases) Emissions

F-gas emissions remained close to zero until the mid-1990s. They then rose gradually, from around 0.004 megatonnes CO₂e in 1995 to roughly 0.15 megatonnes CO₂e in 2016, before accelerating. Emissions reached their highest level, around 0.3 megatonnes CO₂e, in 2024.

Background

Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are the main drivers of human-induced warming. In the scientific literature, human-induced emissions are often referred to as anthropogenic emissions.

Carbon Dioxide (CO₂)
Methane (CH₄)
Nitrous oxide (N₂O)
Fluorinated gases (F-gases)

Emissions from all different gases are expressed in CO₂-equivalent units to make it possible to compare the relative emissions from these different gases. CO₂-equivalents are calculated using the global warming potentials of the respective gases, in this case using a 100-year time horizon.

Wikipedia: Global Warming Potential

Total Historic Share

Crabon Dioxide (CO₂)

CO₂ includes emissions from fossil fuels and industry (FFI), and from land-use, land-use-change, and forestry (LULUCF).

Methane (CH₄)

Methane emissions are caused by human activities such as rearing livestock, agricultural practices, and fugitive fossil fuel emissions.

Nitrous Oxide (N₂O)

Common sources of these emissions are fossil fuel emissions and the agricultural use of synthetic fertilizer and manure.

Fluorinated Gases (F-gases)

Fluorinated gases are a group of gases defined by UNFCCC: hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), and nitrogen trifluoride (NF3). Fluorinated gases are also known as halogenated gases.

Wikipedia: Greenhouse Gas Emissions
IPCC: Annual Report 6, 5.2.1 5.2 Historical Trends, Variability and Budgets of CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O

Units and Measures

CO₂-equivalent emissions are expressed in the total weight in megatonnes per year. 1 Megatonne is equal to 1 million tonnes.

Wikipedia: Megatonne
Wikipedia: Global warming potential

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About the Data

National CO₂ emissions data through 2024 is from the Global Carbon Project and covers fossil sources and land-use change. Emissions data through 2024 for CH₄, N₂O and F-gases comes from the PRIMAP-hist dataset, which combines several published sources into historical emissions time series.

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.

PRIMAP-hist The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series (1750-2024)
Update cycle: Every few monthsDelay: Less than 1 yearCredits: Gütschow, J.; Busch, D.; Pflüger, M. (2025): The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series v2.7 (1750-2024). zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.17090760

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