United States of America's Sources of CO2 Emissions
Key Insights
2024 CO2 Emissions Profile
In 2024, the United States emitted about 5,000 megatonnes CO2e across these sources. Oil was the largest source at roughly 2,190 megatonnes CO2, or 43.8% of emissions, followed by gas at around 1,750 megatonnes CO2 (35.0%) and coal at about 730 megatonnes CO2 (14.7%). Other fossil sources contributed around 230 megatonnes CO2 (4.7%) and land-use about 90 megatonnes CO2 (1.8%). Over the ten years to 2024, coal fell sharply, oil edged down, gas rose, land-use increased, and other fossil emissions were broadly stable.
Historic Coal Emissions
Coal emissions rose from roughly 25 megatonnes CO2 in 1851 to around 1,350 in 1916. They then varied, reaching about 1,550 in 1918 and falling to roughly 830 in 1932, before climbing again to a peak of around 2,140 megatonnes CO2 in 2005. They declined steeply thereafter, ending at about 730 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Oil Emissions
Oil emissions began near zero in 1851 and became more substantial in the early 20th century, reaching around 790 megatonnes CO2 by 1947. They rose rapidly to roughly 2,290 by 1976, then fluctuated at high levels, peaking at about 2,580 megatonnes CO2 in 2005. Emissions ended at around 2,190 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Gas Emissions
Gas emissions were near zero in 1851 and remained low into the early 20th century. They rose strongly after the 1920s, reaching around 1,170 megatonnes CO2 in 1973, before declining to about 840 in 1986. Emissions then resumed a long rise, reaching their record high of roughly 1,750 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions began at around 700 megatonnes CO2 in 1851 and rose to a peak of roughly 1,390 in 1899. They then declined substantially, falling to around 150 megatonnes CO2 by 1961. Since then, they have fluctuated widely, including net absorption of about 36 megatonnes CO2 in 2011, and ended at around 90 megatonnes CO2 in 2024.
Historic Other Fossil Emissions
Other fossil emissions were near zero in 1851 and remained below roughly 25 megatonnes CO2 until the late 1940s. They rose to around 70 in 1951, then fluctuated at comparatively low levels until a sharp increase around 1990. Emissions subsequently varied near 200 megatonnes CO2, peaking at about 260 in 2019 and ending around 230 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.