Long description

This is an area graph with two parts. The left-hand part shows emissions broken down into the contributions from coal, oil and natural gas all the way from 1850 to 2022. The smaller right-hand part gives expanded details from 2000 to 2022. The y-axis for both parts is labelled ‘CO2 emissions in gigatonnes per year’. The scale runs from zero to 40 gigatonnes per year in 5 gigatonne intervals. The year is shown on the x-axis. In the left-hand part it runs from 1850 to 2022 marked at 1850, 1900, 1950 and 2000. In the right-hand part it runs from 2000 to 2022 with labels marked at 2000, 2010 and 2020. The contributions are shown in different colours, with coal in black, oil in orange and natural gas in medium blue. These areas are also indicated by labels. In 1850, total CO2 emissions were below 1 gigatonne, almost entirely from coal. Total emissions grew slowly, reaching about 2 gigatonnes in 1900 and 3 gigatonnes in 1920. Emissions then remained relatively constant at about 4 gigatonnes until about 1940, when total emissions started to rise rapidly, reaching about 17 gigatonnes in 1973, flattening out slightly and then rising to about 25 gigatonnes in 2000. Total emissions continued to rise but more slowly, reaching 35 gigatonnes in 2018, falling in 2020 and then rising back to 35 gigatonnes in 2022. Emissions from coal made up almost all of the total from 1850 to 1920. They grew steadily from about 4 gigatonnes in 1950 to about 5.5 gigatonnes in 1973 and 9 gigatonnes in 2000, then more rapidly reaching about 15 gigatonnes in 2012, after which they flattened out at this level until 2022. Emissions from oil were zero or negligible until about 1925, when they started to grow, reaching 1 gigatonne in about 1945, 8 gigatonnes in 1973 and 12 gigatonnes in 2012, after which they flattened out, but with a pronounced temporary fall in 2020. Natural gas only started showing on the graph after 1950. Emissions grew to 2 gigatonnes in 1973, 5 gigatonnes in 2000 and 8 gigatonnes in 2022.