South Africa's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
South Africa's CO2 emissions totalled around 443 megatonnes CO2e in 2024. Coal dominated, at roughly 371 megatonnes CO2 and 83.8% of emissions, declining by about 2.7 megatonnes CO2 per year over the ten years to 2024. Oil contributed around 55 megatonnes CO2 (12.4%) and edged upward. Gas supplied about 7.7 megatonnes CO2 (1.7%) and declined, while other fossil sources and land-use each contributed under 2%; both rose slightly.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions began at negligible levels in the late nineteenth century, reaching roughly 56 megatonnes CO2 by 1948. Growth then accelerated, especially from the late 1970s, and emissions peaked at about 418 megatonnes CO2 in 2008. They have generally declined since the early 2010s, ending at around 371 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions were near zero until after 1946, then rose to around 38 megatonnes CO2 by the mid-1970s. They subsequently fluctuated, reaching about 53 megatonnes CO2 in 1989 and falling to roughly 22 megatonnes CO2 in 2002. Emissions peaked at around 71 megatonnes CO2 in 2009 and ended at about 55 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions were negligible until around 1990, when they reached roughly 3.4 megatonnes CO2. They generally increased through the following decades, peaking at about 9.8 megatonnes CO2 in 2019. Emissions then declined, reaching around 7.7 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions rose from around 1.5 megatonnes CO2 in the early 1850s to a peak of roughly 63 megatonnes CO2 in 1960. They declined thereafter, briefly recovering to around 43 megatonnes CO2 in 1991, before falling over the following decades. They ended at about 3.3 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were negligible until the early twentieth century and rose gradually after 1930, reaching around 3.6 megatonnes CO2 by the mid-1970s. They increased slowly thereafter, peaking at roughly 5.9 megatonnes CO2 in 2021, before ending at around 5.6 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.