Assessment of the trends of greenhouse gas emission in Ethiopia

Abstract

This paper assesses the trends of greenhouse gas emissions in Ethiopia. To assess the trends of greenhouse gas emissions, the paper uses quantitative data ranging from 1990-2013. This data is ascertained from United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Data interface. The Paper analyzed these data using descriptive methods of data analysis. Accordingly, the paper revealed that Ethiopia has shown increasing trends of emission in most sectors, except land use-land use change, and forestry. Having an average emission of 50739.73 GgCO2e, land use-land use change, and forestry is the largest sector that contributes to greenhouse gas emissions in Ethiopia. The agricultural sector played the second largest role with an average emission level of 47093.63 GgCO2e. Following the above two sectors, the energy sector, ranked third, has contributed an emission of 17670.13 GgCO2e. Other sectors like waste, industrial, and international bunkers have contributed a trivial amount to the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, with average greenhouse gas emissions of 3081.21 GgCO2e, 881.21 GgCO2e, and 458.65 GgCO2e respectively. However, the annual emissions growth rate of the bunker sector is very high accounting for 57.53%. The industrial sector has shown a 20.05% average annual growth rate followed by land use- land use change and forestry with an annual emission growth rate of 19.76%. The energy sector and waste sector have 9.45% and 7.4% average annual growth rates. The agricultural sector has a 3.11% of average annual growth rate. The country has introduced different policy instruments. However, most of the policy instruments are not effective enough.