What Produces the Most Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Wales?
Welsh emissions totalled 30.13 MtCO2e in 2024. Industry, not transport, is the largest source — which makes Wales a genuinely different decarbonisation problem from the UK average.
Zero to Green Editorial
The UK story is that transport is now the largest emitting sector. Wales is not the UK, and repeating the national headline here would be wrong.
The 60-word answer
Welsh greenhouse gas emissions totalled 30.13 MtCO₂e in 2024. Industry was the largest source at 6.73 MtCO₂e, followed by domestic transport (5.79), agriculture (5.16), electricity supply (4.57), buildings and product use (3.81), fuel supply (3.29) and waste (1.07). Wales has a heavier industrial and agricultural profile than the UK as a whole.
The 2024 sector breakdown
| Sector | 2024 emissions (MtCO₂e) |
|---|---|
| Industry | 6.73 |
| Domestic transport | 5.79 |
| Agriculture | 5.16 |
| Electricity supply | 4.57 |
| Buildings and product use | 3.81 |
| Fuel supply | 3.29 |
| Waste | 1.07 |
| Total | 30.13 |
Reported. Source: Welsh Government inventory covering 2024, as published on StatsWales.
What the numbers actually mean
These are territorial emissions: greenhouse gases released within Wales, converted to a carbon dioxide equivalent. They exclude emissions embodied in imported goods, and they attribute emissions to the point of release, so electricity generated in Wales and consumed in England counts here.
What it does not mean
It does not mean Welsh people emit more than others; a few very large industrial installations shift a small nation’s totals in a way they cannot shift the UK’s. Nor does it mean agriculture is uniquely inefficient, livestock methane is a large share of Welsh agricultural emissions and reflects land that suits grazing rather than arable.
Why this matters in Wales
Policy that works for the UK average may not work here. A transport-first strategy addresses the UK’s largest sector but only Wales’s second. Conversely, a small number of industrial decarbonisation decisions, steel, cement, refining, can move the Welsh total by a percentage point in a way no behavioural programme can.
What can be done
- Organisations: baseline your own emissions rather than assuming the national profile applies to you.
- Suppliers to industry: expect embodied carbon questions to arrive through procurement first. See why 72% of Welsh public sector emissions are supply chain.
- Everyone reporting: distinguish reductions caused by grid decarbonisation from reductions you caused.
Sources and methodology
- Greenhouse gas emissions by sector, StatsWales.
- Greenhouse gas emissions statistics, Welsh Government.
Sector figures are as published; the total is the published total, not our sum of the rows. Land use and forestry is reported separately and is not included above.
Last reviewed: 31 August 2026.
Context: Climate change in Wales. Compare with the UK-wide emissions picture.