According to Mozambique’s updated NDC, LULUCF is the largest contributor to national emissions by a significant margin, accounting for 70% of the 149 MtCO₂e emitted in 2019. This is followed by the energy and agriculture sectors, responsible for 12% of the 2019 emissions each. The Waste and Industry Processes and Product Use (IPPU) Sectors contributed the least to national emissions, collectively accounting for 4% of total national emissions.

Between 1990 and 2013, the IPPU sector experienced the largest annual growth in emissions at 26%, followed by waste (8%), energy (2%), agriculture (1.5%), and LULUCF (0.5%).²

The country continues to experience deforestation rates of 0.5-1.5% per year, mainly due to timber extraction and agricultural conversion. This is imposing further constrains on the country’s extensive forest cover, which encompasses roughly 50% of the territory, and could further exacerbate LULUCF and agriculture related national emissions.

Lastly, with the discovery of significant natural gas reserves in 2010, Mozambique has been extensively developing its production and export capacities of the fossil fuel. This is demonstrated by the Mozambique LNG Project, which has seen over USD 20 billion invested in the resource off the coast of Northern Mozambique to tap into 65 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas.³ It is also noteworthy that the lead operator of the project is the foreign multinational corporation Total Energies.¹² Such projects will likely increase national emissions from the energy sector significantly, and lock the country in a high carbon future.

¹ Government of Mozambique. Updated First National Determined Contribution of Mozambique. (2021).

² USAID. Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Mozambique. (2017).

³ Mozambique LNG. About the Mozambique Liquefied Natural Gas Project. Total Energies. (2020).

⁴ Mokveld, K. & von Eije, S. Final Energy Report Mozambique. (2018).

⁵ van der Plas, R. J. et al. Mozambique Biomass Energy Strategy. (2012).

⁶ IEA. Mozambique Key Energy Statistics, 2019. International Energy Agency. (2022).

⁷ UN Environment Programme. Protecting the environment in Mozambique’s emerging oil and gas sector. UN Environment Programme UN Environment Programme (2019).

⁸ Government of Mozambique. Plano de Acção Tecnológica e Ideias de Projecto: Tecnologias de Geração de Electricidade e de Gestão e Tratamento de Resíduos Sólidos Urbanos.(2018).

⁹ Inter Institutional Group on Climate Change. National Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Strategy. (2021).

¹⁰ See assumptions here: https://1p5ndc-pathways.climateanalytics.org/methodology/#moz-ndc

¹¹ Global cost-effective pathways assessed by the IPCC Special Report 1.5°C tend to include fossil fuel use well beyond the time at which these could be phased out, compared to what is understood from bottom-up approaches, and often rely on rather conservative assumptions in the development of renewable energy technologies. This tends to result in greater reliance on technological CDR than if a faster transition to renewables were achieved. The scenarios available at the time of this analysis focus particularly on BECCS as a net-negative emission technology, and our downscaling methods do not yet take national BECCS potentials into account.

¹² It should be noted that as of March 2022, Total Energies has declared force majeure on the Mozambique LNG Project due to the prevailing security situation in Cabo Delgado province, where the Project is situated. The future of the Project is therefore uncertain.