United Republic of Tanzania's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
In 2024, Tanzania's emissions across these sources totalled around 97.6 megatonnes CO2e. Land-use was by far the largest source, at roughly 77.6 megatonnes CO2 or 79.5%, and fell by around 3.0 megatonnes CO2 per year over the ten years to 2024. Oil contributed about 11.3 megatonnes CO2 (11.5%) and rose by roughly 0.4 annually. Gas, coal and other fossil sources were smaller but increasing, reaching around 3.8, 2.0 and 2.9 megatonnes CO2 respectively.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions were very low and fluctuating from 1950 to the late 1970s, ranging from roughly 0.004 to 0.2 megatonnes CO2. They then rose gradually to around 0.5 megatonnes CO2 in 2011, before accelerating despite a dip in 2013. Coal emissions reached their peak of about 2.0 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions began at around 0.3 megatonnes CO2 in 1950 and rose to roughly 3.0 megatonnes CO2 by 1973. They then varied at lower levels through 2001, including a low of about 1.7 megatonnes CO2 in 1980. Since the turn of the century, emissions climbed steadily to a 2024 peak of around 11.3 megatonnes CO2.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions were near zero until 1999, then increased to around 1.8 megatonnes CO2 by 2014. Growth continued over the following years, reaching a peak of roughly 4.3 megatonnes CO2 in 2023. Emissions eased slightly to around 3.8 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions fell from around 7.3 megatonnes CO2 in 1851 to net removals of roughly 2.9 megatonnes CO2 in 1915. They then rose sharply, fluctuated at high levels, and declined to around 38.6 megatonnes CO2 in 1991. Emissions later increased again, peaking at roughly 127.6 megatonnes CO2 in 2006 before ending at around 77.6 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were near zero in 1950 and rose slowly to around 0.3 megatonnes CO2 by 1998. They increased to roughly 0.9 megatonnes CO2 in 2013, then grew more rapidly. Emissions reached their peak of around 2.9 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.