South Africa
CO2 from fossil fuels and industry produced in South Africa (territorial emissions; land-use change is not included). The figures below are for 2022, the latest year with total, per-person and per-GDP figures for at least 150 countries.
2022 at a glance
- Total
- 429 million tonnes15th of 164 countries in 2022
- Per person
- 6.87 tonnes34th of 164 countries in 2022
- Per unit of GDP
- 0.593 kg per international dollar (2011 prices, PPP)9th of 164 countries in 2022
In 2024, the latest year with a total, South Africa emitted 440 million tonnes.
The trend
CO2 from fossil fuels and industry in South Africa was 440 million tonnes in 2024, 41% more than in 1990. The highest yearly total between 1950 and 2024 was 495 million tonnes, in 2008.
Show the data as a table
| Year | Million tonnes |
|---|---|
| 1950 | 60.9 |
| 1955 | 82.9 |
| 1960 | 97.8 |
| 1965 | 128 |
| 1970 | 150 |
| 1975 | 185 |
| 1980 | 228 |
| 1985 | 324 |
| 1990 | 313 |
| 1995 | 362 |
| 2000 | 378 |
| 2005 | 416 |
| 2010 | 467 |
| 2015 | 457 |
| 2020 | 435 |
| 2024 | 440 |
By source, 2022
OWID splits CO2 by the fuel or process it comes from, not by economic sector. The published parts add up to 429 million tonnes of the 429 million tonne total.
| Source | Million tonnes |
|---|---|
| Coal | 357 |
| Oil | 59.2 |
| Gas | 6.93 |
| Cement | 5.63 |
| Gas flaring | 0.0378 |
Compared with
Sources and licences
- Our World in Data, CO2 and Greenhouse Gas Emissions (owid-co2-data.csv): countries from 1950. Our World in Data, CO2 and Greenhouse Gas Emissions (ourworldindata.org/co2-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions), based on the Global Carbon Budget (2025), the Maddison Project Database 2023 (Bolt and van Zanden) and OWID's population series. Retrieved 16 October 2026. CC BY 4.0 for Our World in Data's own work; data produced by third parties keeps its source's terms (OWID's co2-data README). CO2: Global Carbon Budget (2025); GDP: Maddison Project Database 2023; population: OWID's population series. Terms, full data file. Changes: Countries only (rows with a three-letter ISO code), years from 1950, and the columns iso_code, country, year, population, co2, co2_per_capita, co2_per_gdp and the CO2 by source (coal, oil, gas, cement, flaring, other industry); values and row order as published; LF line endings.
Our chart is licensed CC BY 4.0: share it with a credit and a link. The data keep their sources' terms, and no endorsement is implied.