Emissions set to dip 0.5% this year

There are three pieces of good news:

1. Total emissions will most likely fall this year, even though it's not a recession or COVID year.
2. The growth in fossil fuel emissions fell from 1.7% p.a. in the decade 2006-2015 to 0.3% per year in 2016-2025.  Progress, but not enough.  However, I am confident that fossil fuel emissions will actually fall over this next decade as transport is electrified and renewables continue to gain market share.
3. China's emissions are likely to fall 0.9% this year, after two years of low growth.  China is responsible for 32% of global emissions.  I believe China's emissions have prolly peaked, though they won't start falling fast for another few years.

However, this is still not fast enough.  We need to cut emissions by 3% per annum to avoid passing the 2 degree above pre-industrial temperatures threshold.

I also suspect emissions won't rise next year, because it will be a recession/low growth year for most of the world.  

From Carbon Brief

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels and cement are projected to fall by around 0.4% in 2026 to 38.2bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2), according to new figures from the Global Carbon Project.

The 21st edition of the annual “global carbon budget” report, published today, says that this small decline is largely due to a 1.9% drop in emissions from oil and the energy shock triggered by the Iran conflict and the closure of the strait of Hormuz.

Emissions from coal continue to increase slightly.

The Global Carbon Project’s projections for fossil fuel and cement CO2 emissions in 2026 are preliminary, with a range that spans a fall of -1.5% to a rise of +0.6%.

This means a small increase in emissions can not be ruled out.

Emissions from land-use change, such as deforestation, are projected to rise in 2026.

This is primarily driven by peat fires and forest degradation in south-east Asia and is linked to the development of a strong El Niño event this year.

As a result, total CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and land use are projected to reach a record high of 43.3GtCO2 in 2026 – marginally above 42.8GtCO2 in 2025 [ + 1.1%].

Research published alongside the report by the same team in Nature Climate Change finds that the growth in solar, wind and electric vehicles (EVs) now offsets around two-thirds of the emissions that would otherwise come from rising energy demand.

However, the deployment of these technologies is not yet enough to push global emissions into a sustained decline, according to the study.

The 2026 global carbon budget report also estimates that:

• Fossil emissions are projected to fall in China (-0.9%), the US (-1.3%) and the EU (-1.5%) in 2026, but rise by 4.4% in India.
• Oil emissions are projected to fall in every major region, with the largest drop in China (-4.6%).
• Land-use emissions averaged 4.9GtCO2 per year over 2016-25, around 21% lower than the decade before.
• Total CO2 emissions (fossil and land-use) grew by an average 0.3% per year over the past decade (2016-25), compared with 1.7% per year over the decade before.
• The remaining carbon budget to limit warming to 1.5C is 150GtCO2, or less than four years of current emissions.
• The land sink in 2025 was the highest on record, rebounding after being weakened during the 2023-24 El Niño. The current El Niño is expected to weaken the land sink in 2027.
• The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is set to reach 427.7 parts per million (ppm) in 2026, 54% above pre-industrial levels.

(For more on previous editions of the Global Carbon Project’s annual report, see Carbon Brief’s coverage in 2025, 2024, 2023 and 2022.)