The 2026 Global Carbon Budget report was published in the journal Earth System Science Data Nov. 10 and is due to be presented at the U.N. Climate Change Conference's COP31 meeting in Antalya, Turkey, this week.
Global carbon emissions have increased steadily since record-keeping began. This year is projected to have a slight decrease in fossil-fuel emissions, but that is partly due to price increases caused by the Iran conflict. (Image credit: 2026 Global Carbon Budget report)"It is an encouraging sign that the growth of emissions is slowing and decarbonisation efforts are starting to make a difference," said Joeri Rogelj, a climate scientist at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London who wasn't involved in the research. "However, at 0.4%, the projected decline is very small," Rogelj told Live Science in an email.
The war with Iran has resulted in restricted fuel availability and high prices, with a corresponding reduction in demand
Part of the 0.4% reduction in CO2 emissions is attributable to 40 countries that have cut emissions over the past decade while growing their economies. These include the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Japan and about 30 countries in the European Union, the researchers reported.
Carbon emissions are projected to decrease slightly in the U.S., China and the E.U. but to increase in India. (Image credit: 2026 Global Carbon Budget report)
Fossil-fuel-linked CO2 emissions from the rest of the world are projected to decrease by 0.7%, driven mainly by a 1.9% drop in oil emissions. The report authors suggested that this is a short-term response to the global supply constraints and increased prices triggered by the Iran conflict.
While fossil fuel emissions and demand for oil are declining globally, overall demand for energy is actually increasing.
About two-thirds of that increase in demand is being met by solar and wind power and electric vehicles, showing that clean technologies are making a real difference in reducing global emissions, Hauck said. However, the hike in energy prices that resulted from the Iran conflict also decreased demand by 0.4%, she said.
Nearing the peak?
The exceptional circumstances that energy markets experienced this year make it clear that the small projected emissions decline is no reason to declare that emissions are now reducing, but there are hopeful signs, Rogelj said.
The report found that clean energy growth isn't yet fast enough to drive a steady decline in global CO2 emissions attributable to fossil fuels. The study authors expect that to happen in the next few years, Hauck said, as long as there is a continued push to deploy solar and wind power, batteries and electric vehicles.
This means that the total budget of CO2 that can be emitted before global warming reaches 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels is now just 150 billion metric tons (165 billion U.S. tons) — equivalent to less than four years of emissions at the current rate.
Related storiesHauck, like many climate scientists, thinks we have already missed our chance to hit the 1.5 C target and could only get back to that level through extensive removal of CO2 from the atmosphere.?
To halt global warming from increasing ever further, the world needs to be more ambitious in its planned emissions cuts, said Rogeli. We need to bring annual emissions down to zero to protect future generations from a double whammy of “having to try to transform economies so that they produce less climate pollution, while dealing with the impacts and damages of an increasingly adverse climate system," he said.
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