United Arab Emirates' Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
In 2024, the United Arab Emirates emitted around 222 megatonnes CO2e across these sources. Gas dominated, at roughly 144 megatonnes CO2 (65.1%), followed by oil at around 66 megatonnes CO2 (29.5%). Other fossil sources contributed about 7.7 megatonnes CO2 (3.5%) and coal 4.3 megatonnes CO2 (1.9%); land-use was a small net sink of about 0.07 megatonnes CO2. Over the ten years to 2024, gas rose by around 1.2 megatonnes CO2 annually, while the other fossil sources declined.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions were negligible until the early 2000s, then rose from about 0.1 megatonnes CO2 in 2001 to nearly 7 megatonnes CO2 in 2013. They continued upward more gradually, peaking at roughly 10 megatonnes CO2 in 2021, before falling sharply. In 2024, coal emissions were around 4.3 megatonnes CO2.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions began at very low levels around 1959 and rose to about 17 megatonnes CO2 by the mid-1980s. After fluctuating through the late twentieth century, they climbed strongly from the early 2000s, peaking at roughly 78 megatonnes CO2 in 2016. They then declined overall, ending at around 66 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions were close to zero in the early 1960s but grew rapidly from the late 1970s, reaching roughly 36 megatonnes CO2 by 1993 and around 83 megatonnes CO2 by 2006. Growth accelerated to about 130 megatonnes CO2 in 2011, then slowed and fluctuated. Emissions reached their record peak of roughly 144 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions were a very small net sink through the historical record. They varied around zero after the mid-1940s, briefly reaching emissions of roughly 0.2 megatonnes CO2 in 1998 and a sink of about 0.2 megatonnes CO2 in 2008. In 2024, land-use remained a net sink of around 0.07 megatonnes CO2.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were near zero until the late 1960s, when they rose abruptly and fluctuated, peaking at roughly 35 megatonnes CO2 in 1978. They subsequently declined overall, although they fell as low as about 2.7 megatonnes CO2 in 1991 before recovering. In 2024, emissions from other fossil sources were around 7.7 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.