Agriculture sector GHG emissions

Total agriculture emissions at second-lowest level since 1990

Figure 1: Total and agriculture GHG emissions in Scotland, 1990 to 2024

GHG emissions from Scottish agriculture were 7.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2024. This is the second lowest value since the baseline period in 1990 (8.7MtCO2e).

Since 1990, total agriculture GHG emissions decreased by 13.7% (1.2 MtCO2e).  Net emissions in Scotland fell by 50% over the same period, from 78.7 MtCO2e in 1990 to 39.0 MtCO2e in 2024.

Compared with the previous year, total agriculture emissions fell by 0.4% to 7.5 MtCO2e in 2024. A rise in emissions from fuel combustion (15.3%, 0.1 MtCO2e), primarily associated with arable farming, was narrowly offset by reductions across all other sources. The largest decreases were seen in emissions from agricultural soils (-4.2%, 0.1 MtCO2e) and enteric fermentation (-1.2%, 0.1 MtCO2e).

Over the same period, total cattle and sheep numbers fell by 1% and 2% respectively. Ruminant livestock are the source of enteric fermentation emissions, where methane is released during digestion. Fertiliser use also fell slightly in 2024, with rates remaining lower than pre-2022 levels.

In 2024, agriculture was the third largest source of emissions in Scotland, using Territorial Emissions Statistics (TES) Sector categories. Agriculture was responsible for 19.3% of net emissions in Scotland in 2024.   

Agricultural sector GHG emissions have been revised since last year’s release to incorporate methodological improvements and new data. Improvements to data used to estimate Scotland’s share of UK enteric fermentation and manure management emissions have been applied to the entire timeseries (1990 to 2024). As a result, agriculture emissions are slightly higher (<0.1 MtCO2e)  than previously reported for all years, except for 2022 where the revised estimate is slightly lower (<0.01 MtCO2e). Comparisons should only be made with estimates in the latest release.

More results for total Scotland GHG emissions, including for agriculture and other industries, are available in the Scottish Greenhouse Gas Statistics 2024.

Enteric fermentation remains the largest source of total agriculture emissions

Figure 2: Agriculture greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Scotland, by emission source, 2024

Enteric fermentation (animal digestion) was the largest source of GHG emissions from agriculture in 2024. Emissions from enteric fermentation were 4.0 MtCO2e, just over half (52.6%) of total emissions from Scottish agriculture.

Emissions from enteric fermentation have had the largest overall reduction compared with all other agricultural emission sources. From 1990 and 2024, emissions from enteric fermentation fell by 1.0 MtCO2e (19.6%). The primary producers of emissions from enteric fermentation are cattle and sheep. Over the same period, the number of cattle and sheep in Scotland reduced by 21% and 35%, respectively.

Emissions from liming and fuel combustion have both increased between 1990 and 2024 by a combined 0.4 MtCO2e (55.3%). Arable farming accounts for most emissions from liming and fuel combustion.

Another major source of emissions from agriculture is manure management, which is mostly associated with livestock. Manure management emissions fell by 15.4% or 0.2 MtCO2e from 1990 to 2024.

A breakdown of emission sources by subsector is available to explore on the Agriculture Statistics Hub and to download under Supporting documents.

More information about the categories used to group sources of GHG emissions is included in the Glossary and can be found in the methodology.