Land-use Emissions Fall by a Third This Century, Despite Fossil Fuel Emissions Rise
A recent report by the Global Carbon Budget notes a significant decrease in land-use change emissions since the late 1990s, with a steep drop in emissions after 2015.
Land-use emissions have been falling over the past quarter of a century, despite a continued rise in fossil fuel emissions.
The Global Carbon Budget report, formally published in May, notes a statistically significant decrease in land-use change emissions since the late 1990s. This decline has accelerated in recent years, with a steep drop in emissions after 2015.
According to the report, land-use emissions in 2025 had decreased by around 32% compared to their average in the 2000s. This decrease is attributed to decreasing emissions from deforestation, particularly permanent deforestation, and increasing CO2 removals from forest regrowth.
## Changes in Land-use Emissions
Land-use emissions have been falling over the past quarter of a century. The Global Carbon Budget report notes that, in the four decades to 1999, net CO2 emissions from land-use change remained relatively constant, sitting at around 6.6bn tonnes of carbon dioxide (GtCO2) per year.
However, since the late 1990s, global land-use emissions have been falling. The 2025 report estimates that land-use emissions over 2015-24 averaged at 5GtCO2 a year. This is around 23% lower than the average over 1995-2004 and 19% lower than 2005-14.
In contrast, global emissions from fossil fuels and cement have increased every decade since 1959, rising from an average of 11GtCO2 in the 1960s to 35.9GtCO2 over 2015-24.
| Year | Land-use Emissions (GtCO2) | Fossil Fuel Emissions (GtCO2) | | --- | --- | --- | | 1960s | 6.6 | 11 | | 1995-2004 | 6.6 | 24.5 | | 2005-14 | 6.3 | 29.4 | | 2015-24 | 5 | 35.9 |
## Reasons for Falling Land-use Emissions
The Global Carbon Budget attributes falling land-use emissions since the late 1990s to decreasing emissions from deforestation, in particular permanent deforestation. Permanent deforestation refers to the complete removal of trees for the conversion of forest to another land use.
The Global Carbon Budget also points to increasing CO2 removals from forest regrowth as a reason for falling land-use emissions since the turn of the century.
Looking at more recent trends, the report attributes a steep drop in land-use emissions in the decade since 2015 to the combined effect of a peak in peat fire emissions in 2015, as well as a long-term decline in deforestation emissions in many countries over 2010-20.
## Countries Behind Falling Land-use Emissions
The countries that contributed the most to land-use emissions over 2015-24 were Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Indonesia. These three countries together contributed more than half - 57% - of global land-use emissions.
Over the first quarter of the 21st century, falling land-use emissions in Brazil and Indonesia have combined with increased afforestation and reforestation in China to drive down overall land-use emissions.
Friedlingstein says that the decline in land-use emissions since the 2000s has been primarily driven by a decline in deforestation in Brazil. He notes that tree clearance in the South American country rose in the 1990s then started to fall after a peak in the 2000s.
Prof Julia Pongratz, a professor of physical geography and land-use systems at the University of Munich and contributor to the Global Carbon Budget, says Brazil is the single most important contributor to the early-2000s global land-use change emissions peak and subsequent decline.
She notes that Indonesia has rewetted more peatland area since 2017 alone than Europe in its entire history. Another reason for Indonesia's downward trend in land-use emissions is that there have been fewer spikes in emissions caused by fires related to human land-use activities over the last decade.
Emissions from ecosystem fires are not always counted towards national and regional land-use emissions budgets, which estimate the sum of human-caused emissions. Deforestation fires and those related to peatland drainage are included, whereas fires caused by droughts and heatwaves are not.
The Global Carbon Budget attributes its projection of a drop in land-use emissions between 2024 and 2025 to the end of El Niño conditions.
