Abstract
Gas flaring is a major source of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in oil-producing countries and remains an acute environmental challenge in Libya. The country’s instability has repeatedly disrupted oil and gas operations, leading to highly volatile flaring behavior and complicating long-term mitigation efforts. This study applies time-series forecasting to model and project per-capita CO2 emissions from gas flaring in Libya using two forecasting frameworks: Exponential Smoothing with additive trend (ETS) and an Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model, based on annual data from 1967 to 2024. Comparative model evaluation shows that ARIMA outperforms ETS, achieving a root mean squared error of 0.373 and a mean absolute error of 0.327, compared to 0.406 and 0.367 for ETS. Baseline ARIMA forecasts project emissions of approximately capita by 2030, remaining well above the near-zero …