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🇿🇦 South Africa's Yearly Greenhouse Gas Emissions in CO₂ Equivalent

South Africa's Yearly Greenhouse Gas Emissions in CO₂ Equivalent

✨ Key Insights

Industrialization and Early Emissions

South Africa's journey of greenhouse gas emissions began in the late 19th century, marked by the discovery of diamonds in 1867 and the Witwatersrand Gold Rush in 1886. These events spurred industrialization, leading to increased coal consumption and a rise in CO₂ emissions. The formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910 further accelerated industrial development, contributing to a steady increase in emissions.

Mid-20th Century Growth

The mid-20th century saw significant growth in emissions, particularly with the founding of Sasol in 1955 and the global oil crisis of 1973. These events led to a reliance on coal-to-liquid fuel technology, which is carbon-intensive. The opening of the Richards Bay Coal Terminal in 1983 further boosted coal production, resulting in a substantial rise in CO₂ emissions.

Transition and Policy Shifts

The end of apartheid in 1994 marked a new era of economic growth and increased energy demand, leading to higher emissions. However, the early 21st century saw a shift towards renewable energy, with the introduction of the Renewable Energy White Paper in 2001 and the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Programme in 2012. These initiatives aimed to diversify the energy mix and reduce emissions.

Recent Developments and Future Outlook

In recent years, South Africa has made significant strides in addressing emissions. The implementation of a carbon tax in 2019 and the Just Energy Transition Partnership in 2021 highlight the country's commitment to reducing reliance on coal and increasing renewable energy use. These efforts are expected to contribute to a gradual decrease in CO₂ emissions, paving the way for a more sustainable future.

Background

Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are the main drivers of human-induced warming. In the scientific literature, human-induced emissions are often referred to as anthropogenic emissions.

  • CO2 Fossil Fuels and Industry (CO2 FFI)
  • CO2 Land-Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (CO2 LULUCF)
  • Methane (CH4)
  • Moderate: above 2.5 tonnes
  • Nitrous oxide (N2O)
  • Fluorinated gases (F-gases)

Emissions from all different gases are expressed in CO2-equivalent units to make it possible to compare the relative emissions from these different gases. CO2-equivalents are calculated using the global warming potentials of the respective gases, in this case using a 100-year time horizon.

Wikipedia: Global Warming Potential

Total Historic Share

Emissions from all different gases are expressed in CO2-equivalent units to make it possible to compare the relative emissions from these different gases. CO2-equivalents are calculated using the global warming potentials of the respective gases, in this case using a 100-year time horizon.

CO2 From Fossil Fuels and Industry

The sources are mostly fossil-fuel combustion emissions from coal, oil, and gas, as well as emissions from industrial processes such as cement production. Cement also absorbs CO2 out of the atmosphere through carbonation, which reduces emissions by about 0.8 Gt per year and is included here.

CO2 From Land-Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry

The main driver of these emissions is deforestation, which includes logging and forest degradation, as well as other land-use change activities. The emissions also take into account the absorption of CO2 by processes that remove CO2 from the atmosphere, such as afforestation and reforestation. It is the net effect that is indicated here.

Methane (CH4)

Methane emissions are caused by human activities such as rearing livestock, agricultural practices, and fugitive fossil fuel emissions.

Nitrous Oxide (N2O)

Common sources of these emissions are fossil fuel emissions and the agricultural use of synthetic fertilizer and manure.

Fluorinated Gases (F-gases)

Fluorinated gases are a group of gases defined by UNFCCC: hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), and nitrogen trifluoride (NF3). Fluorinated gases are also known as halogenated gases.

Wikipedia: Greenhouse Gas Emissions
IPCC: Annual Report 6, 5.2.1 5.2 Historical Trends, Variability and Budgets of CO2, CH4 and N2O

Units and Measures

CO2-equivalent 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

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About the Data

The last available year in all the emission datasets is 2023. CO2 emissions data is from the Global Carbon Project. It contains national CO2 emissions from fossil sources and land-use change. Emissions from CH4, N2O and F-gases come from the PRIMAP-Hist dataset. It is a rich dataset that combines several published sources to create a historical emissions time series for various greenhouse gases.

The Key Insights paragraph was generated using a large language model (LLM) using a structured approach to improve the accuracy. This included 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.

PRIMAP-hist The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series (1750-2023)
Update cycle: Every few monthsDelay: Less than 1 yearCredits: Gütschow, Johannes; Busch, Daniel; Pflüger, Mika (2024): The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series (1750-2023) v2.6. Zenodo.