Romania's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
In 2024, Romania's emissions across these sources totalled around 58.4 megatonnes CO2e. Oil was the largest source, at about 34.5 megatonnes CO2 (59%), followed by gas at 20.9 megatonnes CO2 (35.8%), coal at 8.0 megatonnes CO2 (13.8%), and other fossil sources at 5.2 megatonnes CO2 (8.8%). Land-use was a net sink of roughly 10.1 megatonnes CO2 (-17.3%). Over the ten years to 2024, oil rose by about 1.0 megatonnes CO2 per year, while coal and gas declined and other fossil emissions were nearly steady; the land-use sink strengthened.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions were near zero in the late 1850s, then rose gradually to roughly 9.5 megatonnes CO2 by 1953. Growth accelerated through the following decades, reaching around 71 megatonnes CO2 by the mid-1980s and peaking at approximately 83.6 megatonnes CO2 in 1989. They then fell sharply to about 8.0 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions were negligible in the late 1850s, although they briefly reached roughly 5.8 megatonnes CO2 in 1912. They rose rapidly from around 4.6 megatonnes CO2 in 1923 to 22.5 in 1932, then varied before climbing to a peak of about 61.4 megatonnes CO2 in 1987. After falling to 23.3 in 2010, they recovered to around 34.5 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions began near zero in the late 1850s and remained low until the mid-1950s, when they were around 9.9 megatonnes CO2. They then climbed rapidly, reaching roughly 76.6 megatonnes CO2 by 1978 and peaking at about 81.1 megatonnes CO2 in 1982. Emissions subsequently declined over several decades, ending at around 20.9 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions began at roughly 14.1 megatonnes CO2 in 1851 and declined to about 9.8 by 1912. They then fluctuated upward, peaking at approximately 27.6 megatonnes CO2 in 1929 and remaining near 25.8 in 1961. A sustained decline brought land use into net absorption by the early 1990s; despite a temporary rise to about 12.3 megatonnes CO2 in 2018, it ended as a sink of roughly 10.1 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were very small, around 0.2 megatonnes CO2, through the late 1940s. They rose steadily from the late 1940s to roughly 7.2 megatonnes CO2 in 1979, reaching a peak of about 7.3 megatonnes CO2 in 1990. They then declined and varied at lower levels, ending at around 5.2 megatonnes CO2 in 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.