# How much do methane and nitrous oxide add to the carbon dioxide from a diesel forklift or other off-road machine in a factory?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/diesel-forklift-methane-and-nitrous-oxide-add-ten-percent

For off-road diesel in industry, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defaults are 4.15 kilograms of methane and 28.6 of nitrous oxide per terajoule (TJ). In carbon dioxide equivalent that adds about 10% to the carbon dioxide, against about 0.3% for a diesel generator set counted as stationary.

## The two default rows for diesel

- Off-road, industry (Table 3.3.1): carbon dioxide (CO2) 74,100 kilograms per TJ; methane (CH4) 4.15 (range 1.67 to 10.4); nitrous oxide (N2O) 28.6 (range 14.3 to 85.8).
- Stationary, manufacturing industries (Table 2.3, gas or diesel oil): CO2 74,100; CH4 3 (range 1 to 10); N2O 0.6 (range 0.2 to 2).
- The CO2 and CH4 figures are close. The N2O figure is about 48 times higher off-road (28.6 against 0.6). The tables give no reason. The off-road note says its data come from European off-road machinery, so Indian machines may sit elsewhere in the range.

## Which row suits which machine: our reading

The IPCC chapter names forklifts among off-road machinery, so a forklift, loader or wheeled crane takes the off-road row. A generator set bolted to a pad and feeding the factory is stationary combustion in our reading, which is how the live diesel generator pages on this site treat it. Pick the row by what the engine does, and say which you used.

## The size, and how wide it can swing

With the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) global warming potentials (GWP) of 28 for CH4 and 265 for N2O, the off-road defaults add about 10.4% to the CO2. The stationary defaults add about 0.33%.

The N2O range is wide. If both gases sat at the lower end of the printed ranges the addition would be about 5.2%; at the upper end, about 31%. A buyer who asks for CO2 only is leaving out roughly a tenth for forklifts at the defaults, so state the exclusion and its size if you leave it out.

## Where the number goes

Report the CO2 from litres as usual, then add CH4 and N2O as separate lines or as one non-CO2 line converted to carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). Name the GWP set. Both lines belong in Scope 1, next to the diesel litres from invoices or the tank issue register.

## Example: 5,000 litres of forklift diesel a year

- CO2: 5,000 x 2.645 = 13,225 kilograms
- Energy: 13,225 / 74,100 = 0.1785 TJ
- CH4: 0.1785 x 4.15 = 0.74 kilograms x 28 = 21 kilograms CO2e
- N2O: 0.1785 x 28.6 = 5.10 kilograms x 265 = 1,353 kilograms CO2e
- Added: 1,374 kilograms, which is 10.4% of the CO2. Total 14,598 kilograms CO2e
- Same diesel in a stationary set: 0.1785 x 3 x 28 + 0.1785 x 0.6 x 265 = 15 + 28 = 43 kilograms, 0.33%

The 5,000 litres is an example quantity. 2.645 kilograms of CO2 per litre is the diesel factor Senseible uses. GWP values are IPCC AR5 without climate-carbon feedback.

## What Senseible does here

Senseible reads fuel invoices and bills into records, so the diesel litres bought are on file. Senseible's diesel factor counts carbon dioxide only, so for forklifts the methane and nitrous oxide lines above are not in its figure. It does not tell a forklift's litres from a generator's, so keep a tank issue register by machine.

- [Diesel forklift against electric forklift](https://senseible.earth/answers/diesel-forklift-vs-electric-forklift-emissions)
- [Do I need methane and nitrous oxide from diesel?](https://senseible.earth/answers/methane-n2o-from-diesel-combustion)
- [Tractor diesel per acre with off-road defaults](https://senseible.earth/answers/tractor-diesel-emissions-per-acre)
- [LPG forklift methane and nitrous oxide](https://senseible.earth/answers/lpg-forklift-methane-nitrous-oxide-ipcc-no-off-road-row)
- [Free calculators](https://senseible.earth/calculators)

Sources: [IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 2 Chapter 3 (Mobile Combustion), Section 3.3 and Table 3.3.1](https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl/pdf/2_Volume2/V2_3_Ch3_Mobile_Combustion.pdf), [IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 2 Chapter 2 (Stationary Combustion), Table 2.3](https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl/pdf/2_Volume2/V2_2_Ch2_Stationary_Combustion.pdf), [IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, Working Group I, Chapter 8, Table 8.7](https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapter08_FINAL.pdf)

Last reviewed 2026-11-05. IPCC 2006 defaults, not the 2019 Refinement. Other pages here may quote 2.68 kilograms of CO2 per litre of diesel; this page uses 2.645, so the CO2 totals differ by about 1.3%, but the percentage added by the two gases does not depend on it.