North Macedonia's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
In 2024, North Macedonia's CO2 emissions totalled around 6.1 megatonnes CO2e. Oil was the largest source, at about 3.5 megatonnes CO2 and 57.6%, followed by coal at roughly 2.5 megatonnes CO2 and 40.3%. Gas contributed around 0.7 megatonnes CO2, or 10.8%, while land-use was a net removal of about 0.5 megatonnes CO2. Over the ten years to 2024, coal declined, while oil and gas increased; land-use moved further into net removals.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions were small before the mid-1940s, although they briefly reached about 0.9 megatonnes CO2 in 1940 before falling to zero in 1944. They then rose strongly through the following decades, peaking at roughly 6.9 megatonnes CO2 in 1998. Coal emissions have declined since the late 2000s, ending at around 2.5 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions were negligible until the years after 1949, then climbed rapidly from around zero to more than 5 megatonnes CO2 by the late 1970s. They peaked at roughly 5.6 megatonnes CO2 in 1979 before declining through 2000. Oil emissions then varied at lower levels but rose overall, reaching around 3.5 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions began to matter from the late 1990s, at around 0.04 megatonnes CO2. They increased gradually through 2015, then rose more sharply to a peak of roughly 0.8 megatonnes CO2 in 2021. Emissions subsequently fell and partly recovered, ending at around 0.7 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions were generally low and variable through the 1980s, occasionally becoming net removals. They surged sharply to a peak of roughly 26.7 megatonnes CO2 in 1991, then fell to around 1.6 megatonnes CO2 by 1999. Since then they have fluctuated at much lower levels, ending as a net removal of about 0.5 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were negligible for most of the period. They briefly reached roughly 0.02 megatonnes CO2 in 1989 before returning to zero by the mid-1990s, where they remained through 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.