North Macedonia's Progress and Recent Impact

Key Insights

Moderate Per Capita Emissions

North Macedonia's recent per capita greenhouse gas emissions are rated as moderate, standing at approximately 4.67 tonnes per person per year. This level of emissions reflects the country's ongoing efforts to balance industrial activity with environmental considerations. The moderate rating suggests that while emissions are not excessively high, there is still room for improvement to align with global sustainability goals. The country's historical reliance on coal, particularly from the REK Bitola power plant, has been a significant contributor to these emissions.

Decline in Total Emissions

The total greenhouse gas emissions for North Macedonia in the latest year are approximately 9.73 megatonnes of CO2-equivalents. This figure represents a small fraction of the global total, at just 0.0176%. Notably, the country has experienced a slight decline in emissions over the past decade, with an annual decrease of 0.88%. This trend is indicative of North Macedonia's efforts to reduce its carbon footprint, likely influenced by initiatives such as the Renewable Energy Law enacted in 2010 and the National Climate Change Strategy adopted in 2015.

Impact of Renewable Energy Initiatives

The shift towards renewable energy sources has played a crucial role in North Macedonia's emissions trajectory. The enactment of the Renewable Energy Law in 2010 and subsequent hydropower expansion initiatives in 2018 have contributed to a gradual reduction in reliance on fossil fuels. These efforts are part of a broader strategy to increase the use of cleaner energy sources, thereby reducing the country's greenhouse gas emissions. The impact of these initiatives is reflected in the declining trend of emissions, highlighting the importance of continued investment in renewable energy.

Challenges and Opportunities

Despite the progress made, North Macedonia faces challenges in further reducing its emissions. The country's historical dependence on coal and other fossil fuels remains a significant hurdle. However, the granting of EU candidate status in 2005 and the adoption of the National Climate Change Strategy in 2015 provide opportunities for alignment with EU environmental standards and international climate commitments. By continuing to invest in renewable energy and improving energy efficiency, North Macedonia can further decrease its emissions and contribute to global efforts to combat climate change.

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 generated using a large language model (LLM) using a structured approach to improve the accuracy. This included 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