Norway's Sources of CO₂ Emissions

Key Insights

Oil Leads, Land And Gas

Oil combustion has been Norway's dominant CO2 source, contributing just over 40% of national emissions over time. Land-use change adds about one-fifth, while coal and gas together account for roughly one-third of the total climate impact.

Rapid Oil Rise, Long Plateau

Oil emissions were modest before the post-war era, then surged through the 1950s and 1960s to around 20 megatonnes by the early 1970s. Since then they have been broadly stable at just over 20 megatonnes, easing slightly in recent years.

Gas Expansion Then Moderation

From the late 1960s, gas emissions climbed steadily, reaching around 10-20 megatonnes by the mid-2010s before pulling back to roughly 10 megatonnes today. This arc contrasts with the steadier path of oil.

Coal Low And Stable

Coal emissions grew early last century, fell around the mid-century transition, and have stayed relatively low and steady since-only a few megatonnes per year-indicating limited reliance on coal combustion.

Land-Use Swings To Source

Land-use, forestry and land-use change shifted from a modest source early on to a net sink in the 1950s-60s, then reversed course. Since the 1990s it has risen again to around 5-6 megatonnes, adding to total emissions.

Actionable Outlook

Today, oil appears stable-to-declining, gas is easing, coal is steady at low levels, while land-use emissions are rising. Accelerating cuts in oil and gas and arresting land-use growth are pivotal for Norway's next emissions step-down.

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 Emissions
Earth 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: Megatonne
Wikipedia: Global warming potential

Stay up-to-date!

Get crucial updates on our climate change insights and data.

About the Data

The last available year is 2023. CO₂ emissions data is from the Global Carbon Project. It contains national CO₂ emissions from 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 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.