Spain's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
In 2024, Spain's CO2 emissions totalled around 212 megatonnes CO2e. Oil was the largest source, at roughly 139 megatonnes CO2 and 65.9% of national emissions, followed by gas at around 56 megatonnes CO2 and 26.3%. Other fossil sources contributed about 14 megatonnes CO2 (6.6%), while coal produced roughly 11 megatonnes CO2 (5.3%). Land-use was a net removal of around 8.7 megatonnes CO2, equal to -4.1%. Over the ten years to 2024, coal, oil and other fossil emissions fell, gas was broadly stable, and land-use removals weakened.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions began at around 0.5 megatonnes CO2 in 1851 and rose unevenly, reaching roughly 22 megatonnes CO2 in 1929 before falling back to under 5 by 1937. They then climbed sharply, peaking at about 90 megatonnes CO2 in 2002. Coal emissions subsequently declined steeply to around 11 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions were negligible through the early twentieth century, though they briefly reached nearly 3 megatonnes CO2 in 1934. After 1946, they rose rapidly from around 1.6 megatonnes CO2 to roughly 142 by 1976. Emissions later fluctuated, peaking at about 188 megatonnes CO2 in 2005, before ending at around 139 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions were near zero until the mid-1970s, reaching around 2.5 megatonnes CO2 in 1975. Growth then accelerated, with emissions rising from roughly 19 megatonnes CO2 in 1995 to a peak of about 83 in 2008. They subsequently declined overall, ending at around 56 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions started at around 17 megatonnes CO2 in 1851 and fell to roughly 7 by the mid-1880s, before varying upward through much of the twentieth century. They peaked at about 32 megatonnes CO2 in 1970, then shifted into net removals, reaching around -16 megatonnes CO2 in 1993. Land-use remained variable thereafter and removed roughly 8.7 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were small through the mid-twentieth century, remaining below around 3 megatonnes CO2 until 1960. They rose to roughly 13 megatonnes CO2 by 1979, then increased again from the late 1980s. Emissions peaked at about 24 megatonnes CO2 in 2006 and declined to around 14 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.