Türkiye's Sources of N2O Emissions
Key Insights
Agriculture Shapes The Story
Türkiye's N2O profile is dominated by agriculture, providing roughly three-quarters of emissions. From the early 20th century to the early 1980s, agricultural emissions climbed steadily, moving from low single digits to around 20 megatonnes. Through the mid-1980s to the late 2000s they eased slightly and appeared relatively stable, before pushing higher again.
Renewed Growth After 2008
Since the late 2000s, agriculture has risen quickly to the high 20s megatonnes, becoming the clear driver of national totals. Energy emissions, small for much of the post-war era, accelerated from the late 1990s to around 5 megatonnes. Industry also trended upward across the second half of the 20th century and has hovered just over 5 megatonnes since the 2000s, with slower growth recently. Waste and other sources changed more gradually, remaining near 1-2 megatonnes.
Current Trajectory And Priorities
Today, the dominant sources-agriculture, industry, and energy-are all on upward paths, with agriculture rising the fastest. Reversing the recent increases in agriculture would have the largest effect on national N2O trends. Continued attention to industry and energy can help, but their contributions are much smaller than agriculture's. Stabilizing or reducing these growing sectors is key to bending Türkiye's overall N2O emissions downward.
Background
The chart shows a national breakdown by source of the yearly nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from human activities and processes, expressed as weight in megatonnes (Mt). Human-induced emissions are the main driver of the increasing atmospheric nitrous oxide that is warming our planet. The sources of human nitrous oxide emissions are
- Agriculture
- Energy
- Industry
- Waste
- Other
Agriculture
Emissions related to agriculture are mainly from the use of synthetic fertilizers and manure management.
Synthetic fertilizer, used for agricultural processes, contains a lot of nitrogen. That nitrogen in the soil reacts and causes considerable N2O emissions. The use of excess fertilizer, meaning more fertilizer than the plants can use to grow, causes even higher relative emissions. Applying the right amount of fertilizer at the right time can reduce N2O emissions. There are many technical solutions to reduce emissions while keeping, or even increasing, agricultural yields.
When manure is left on the field or otherwise managed in dry processes, it emits considerable amounts of nitrous oxide. Manure can be managed by wet processes, which reduces nitrous oxide emissions but increases methane emissions. Some technical solutions focus on modifying the animal feed to reduce the nitrogen in the manure, thereby reducing nitrous oxide emissions.
Energy, Industry, Waste, and Other
All non-agricultural categories together have much lower emissions than agricultural emissions alone.
N2O emissions related to energy are almost all from the combustion of fossil fuels. For example, the combustion of fossil fuels in power plants, cars, and airplanes not only causes CO2 emissions but also emits nitrous oxide (N2O). Any advances to reducing fossil fuel dependency will thus also reduce nitrous oxide emissions.
Most industry-related emissions are from the chemical industry for producing fertilizer, nylon, and similar products. Technologies are available to reduce emissions in these processes.
Nitrous oxide emissions from waste come from, for example, wastewater treatment and landfills.
Wikipedia: Nitrous oxideIPCC: AR6, 5.16 Anthropogenic nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions
Units and Measures
N2O emissions are expressed in the total weight in megatonnes per year. 1 Megatonne is equal to 1 million tonnes.
Wikipedia: MegatonneWikipedia: Global warming potential
About the Data
The last available year in all the emission datasets is 2023. N2O emissions 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 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
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.