Nigeria's Progress and Recent Impact

Key Insights

Latest Emissions At A Glance

Nigeria emitted about 395 megatonnes of CO2‑equivalent in the latest year, roughly 0.7% of the global total. On a per-person basis, emissions are about 1.7 tonnes per capita per year-rated low on our scale-yet still above the near‑zero level consistent with avoiding additional warming.

What Drives Nigeria’s Emissions

Methane is the single largest component of Nigeria's greenhouse gas profile, with substantial contributions from energy-related fugitive releases, livestock, fuel combustion outside power, and waste. Fossil CO2 is the next major pillar, dominated by oil-related emissions, with gas also significant. Nitrous oxide contributes a smaller share, largely tied to agriculture, while F‑gases are minor but present. Land-use CO2 makes up a small slice and is relatively variable.

Ten-Year Trend And Context

Total emissions have edged upward over the past decade-an increase of roughly 1% per year relative to recent-average levels-falling short of the global benchmark path that calls for collective reductions of about 4% per year. Beneath the surface, methane has been trending down modestly, driven by declines in fugitive emissions, while fossil CO2 has been rising and F‑gases have grown from a small base.

Actionable Priorities From The Data

Prioritize deeper methane cuts-especially from fugitive emissions and waste-while constraining growth in oil- and gas-related CO2. Reinforce practices that limit agricultural methane and nitrous oxide. Maintain Nigeria's low per capita emissions on a stable, downward trajectory while supporting development, and steer the overall trend toward consistent year‑on‑year reductions.

Background

Recent per Capita Emissions

The Recent per Capita Emissions are a crucial indicator of a nation's greenhouse gas emissions. They are a fair measure for comparing the emissions of nations, taking into account the size of their populations.

Because any greenhouse gas emissions above 0 cause warming, the per capita emissions shouldn't be judged against the global average; they should be compared based on how far they are above 0. Therefore, our rating scale is:

Extremely High: above 10 tonnes per capita per year
Very High: above 7.5 tonnes
High: above 5 tonnes
Moderate: above 2.5 tonnes
Low: above 0 tonnes
Negative Emissions: under 0

The per capita emissions should be close to zero for each country, indicated here by the green & low areas.

Last Year Emissions

This is the total amount of CO₂, CH₄, N₂O, and F-Gases emissions of a nation in 2023 (last available year in the data) expressed in megatonnes of CO₂-equivalents. The gases have different atmospheric lifetimes (decay) and warming effects, for this reason, we use the GWP100 (100 year time horizon method) to calculate the global warming potential of CH₄, N₂O, and F-Gases to express them in CO₂-equivalents.

Wikipedia: Global Warming Potential

Last Year Share

This is a nation's share of the global emissions in 2023 (last available year in the data). For many countries this value can be quite small, especially when compared to nations like United States or China. It is easy and dangerous to jump to the conclusion that small shares of emissions don't matter. They matter as a group. Even small emitters can account for a significant amount of total emissions. Consider the following examples:

24 nations, each between 0.5 and 1.5% of the total emissions, make up 20% of the total emissions.
27 nations, each between 0.5 and 2% of the total emissions, make up 25% of the total emissions.
162 nations with a share below 0.5% make up 15% of the total.
3 nations, make 44% of the total emissions: China, United States and India. However, China and India together have a population of about 2.9 billion.

Per Capita Emissions are therefore the most crucial indicator to represent the impact of a nation regardless of its size.

Yearly Emissions Trend

This is a nation's trend per year over the last 10 years. It is a good indicator of the trajectory of national emissions and can be used as a simple framework to judge a nation's trend vs. international goals:

Stop warming around 1.5 °C: All nations together, and each nation, should drop emissions by 17% per year — 8,000 Megatonnes of CO₂ Equivalent per Year.
To achieve Net Zero in 2050 and to stop warming at ~1.7 °C: All nations should together, and each nation, should drop emissions by 4% per year — 2,100 Megatonnes of CO₂ Equivalent per Year.
Additionally, to return warming to pre-industrial levels almost all human-induced CO₂ has to be taken out of the atmosphere.

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About the Data

The last available year in all the emission datasets is 2023. CO₂ emissions data is from the Global Carbon Project. It contains national CO₂ emissions from fossil sources and land-use change. Emissions from CH₄, N₂O and F-gases come from the PRIMAP-Hist dataset. It is a rich dataset that combines several published sources to create a historical emissions time series for various greenhouse gases. Population data are also from Global Carbon Project where available, however, for many nations it doesn't have historic population going back to 1850. Those historic gaps are filled with population data from Our World in Data.

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 2024 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 et al., 2024, ESSD. Friedlingstein, P., O'Sullivan, M., Jones, M. W., Andrew, R. M., Hauck, J., Landschützer, P., Le Quéré, C., Li, H., Luijkx, I. T., Olsen, A., Peters, G. P., Peters, W., Pongratz, J., Schwingshackl, C., Sitch, S., Canadell, J. G., Ciais, P., Jackson, R. B., Alin, S. R., Arneth, A., Arora, V., Bates, N. R., Becker, M., Bellouin, N., Berghoff, C. F., Bittig, H. C., Bopp, L., Cadule, P., Campbell, K., Chamberlain, M. A., Chandra, N., Chevallier, F., Chini, L. P., Colligan, T., Decayeux, J., Djeutchouang, L., Dou, X., Duran Rojas, C., Enyo, K., Evans, W., Fay, A., Feely, R. A., Ford, D. J., Foster, A., Gasser, T., Gehlen, M., Gkritzalis, T., Grassi, G., Gregor, L., Gruber, N., Gürses, Ö., Harris, I., Hefner, M., Heinke, J., Hurtt, G. C., Iida, Y., Ilyina, T., Jacobson, A. R., Jain, A., Jarníková, T., Jersild, A., Jiang, F., Jin, Z., Kato, E., Keeling, R. F., Klein Goldewijk, K., Knauer, J., Korsbakken, J. I., Lauvset, S. K., Lefèvre, N., Liu, Z., Liu, J., Ma, L., Maksyutov, S., Marland, G., Mayot, N., McGuire, P., Metzl, N., Monacci, N. M., Morgan, E. J., Nakaoka, S.-I., Neill, C., Niwa, Y., Nützel, T., Olivier, L., Ono, T., Palmer, P. I., Pierrot, D., Qin, Z., Resplandy, L., Roobaert, A., Rosan, T. M., Rödenbeck, C., Schwinger, J., Smallman, T. L., Smith, S., Sospedra-Alfonso, R., Steinhoff, T., Sun, Q., Sutton, A. J., Séférian, R., Takao, S., Tatebe, H., Tian, H., Tilbrook, B., Torres, O., Tourigny, E., Tsujino, H., Tubiello, F., van der Werf, G., Wanninkhof, R., Wang, X., Yang, D., Yang, X., Yu, Z., Yuan, W., Yue, X., Zaehle, S., Zeng, N., and Zeng, J.: Global Carbon Budget 2024, Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss. [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2024-519, in review, 2024.

PRIMAP-hist The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series (1750-2023)
Update cycle: Every few monthsDelay: Less than 1 yearCredits: Gütschow, Johannes; Busch, Daniel; Pflüger, Mika (2024): The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series (1750-2023) v2.6. Zenodo.

Our World in Data Population - Our World in Data
Update cycle: YearlyDelay: 7 monthsCredits: HYDE (2023); Gapminder (2022); UN WPP (2024) – with major processing by Our World in Data