Rwanda's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
In 2024, Rwanda's CO2 emissions were led by oil at around 1.4 megatonnes CO2, or 42.3% of national emissions, followed closely by land-use emissions at roughly 1.3 megatonnes CO2 (39.4%). Other fossil sources contributed around 0.3 megatonnes CO2 (9.3%), coal 0.2 megatonnes CO2 (6.6%), and gas 0.08 megatonnes CO2 (2.5%). Over the ten years to 2024, every source increased, with particularly fast growth in coal and other fossil emissions.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions were negligible for much of the record, remaining below around 0.06 megatonnes CO2 through 2020. They then climbed sharply from roughly 0.04 megatonnes CO2 in 2020 to a peak of around 0.22 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions began at roughly 0.02 megatonnes CO2 in 1950 and remained low until the mid-1970s. They rose rapidly to around 0.7 megatonnes CO2 by 1983, then declined to about 0.45 megatonnes CO2 in the mid-1990s. After remaining fairly steady through 2010, emissions increased to a peak of roughly 1.4 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions were close to zero through 2010, apart from very small earlier amounts. They rose during the following years, reaching a peak of roughly 0.1 megatonnes CO2 in 2018, before easing slightly. Gas emissions ended 2024 at around 0.08 megatonnes CO2.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions fell from roughly 1.1 megatonnes CO2 in 1851 to around 0.5 megatonnes CO2 by 1915, before rising strongly through the mid-twentieth century. They peaked at approximately 8.7 megatonnes CO2 in 1973, then dropped sharply to around 1.7 megatonnes CO2 by 1986. Emissions subsequently fluctuated, briefly becoming negative in 1992, and ended 2024 at roughly 1.3 megatonnes CO2.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were effectively zero until the late 1970s and stayed low through 2014, when they were around 0.04 megatonnes CO2. They then rose rapidly, reaching an overall peak of roughly 0.31 megatonnes CO2 in 2022. Emissions ended 2024 at around 0.31 megatonnes CO2.
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.