Nitrogen limitation reduces CO₂ emissions from land use change primarily by decreasing CO₂ and climate interactions

• N limitation reduces direct and indirect CO 2 emissions from land use change. • N limitation had the strongest impact on the interaction of land use change with CO 2 . • Distinction of direct and indirect emissions and including N limitation are important. Estimates of CO₂ emissions from land-use change strongly influence the inferred land carbon sink but remain highly uncertain. One key source of this uncertainty is nitrogen (N) limitation and its interactions with climate and CO₂ emissions from land-use change. Here we developed and implemented a land-use change scheme into the Australian Community Atmosphere Biosphere Land Exchange model (CABLE) and conducted simulations using a full factorial design combining changes in land use, climate, and atmospheric CO₂, both with and without nitrogen limitation. CABLE with nitrogen limitation simulates global gross primary production (GPP), soil respiration, plant biomass, and soil carbon, with correlation coefficients from 0.6 to 0.9 against the benchmark data. From 1960 to 2020, estimated cumulative CO₂ emissions from land-use change were 119 Pg C without nitrogen limitation and 73 Pg C with nitrogen limitation, compared to 100 ± 35 Pg C from 20 dynamic global vegetation models and 87 ± 24 Pg C from three bookkeeping approaches reported in the Global Carbon Budget 2023. We further partitioned total emissions into direct emissions from land-use change and indirect emissions arising from interactions with climate, nitrogen deposition, and atmospheric CO₂. Nitrogen limitation reduced global direct CO₂ emissions from land-use change by 0.12 Pg C yr⁻¹ and indirect emissions by 0.24 Pg C yr⁻¹ during 1701–1959, and by 0.4 Pg C yr⁻¹ for both emissions during 1960–2020. Nitrogen limitation reduced soil carbon inherited from lands when converted to secondary forests, which contributed over 75 % of the total emission reduction, while reduced regrowth of secondary forests contributed < 25 % of the total reduction. Furthermore, nitrogen limitation had the strongest effect on the interaction between land-use change and atmospheric CO₂. Therefore, accounting for nitrogen limitation in both direct and indirect emissions from land-use change is critical for understanding emission drivers, improving model accuracy, and informing climate policy.