The annual Global Carbon Budget projects that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels will fall by 0.4% in 2026, only the latest in a series of near-plateau years. Its authors caution that the dip owes as much to an oil shock as to clean energy. India’s emissions are projected to rise 4.4%, faster than its decade average. The carbon budget for limiting warming to 1.5 °C now amounts to less than four years of current emissions.
The Global Carbon Budget is the reference count of where the world’s carbon dioxide comes from and where it goes. Its 2026 edition was released on 10 November as world leaders arrived for the COP31 climate summit in Antalya. More than 140 scientists from Exeter, the University of East Anglia, CICERO in Norway, LMU Munich, the Alfred Wegener Institute and more than 90 other institutions contributed. Its headline is cautiously encouraging: fossil CO₂ emissions are projected to fall by 0.4% this year, to 38.2 billion tonnes.
What fell, and why
The decline is uneven across fuels and regions:
- Oil: down 1.9%, the largest fall.
- Natural gas: down 0.3%.
- Coal: still rising, by 0.6%.
The authors attribute the overall fall to two forces: the continued expansion of solar and wind power, and the energy shock from the Iran conflict, which raised oil prices and constrained supply. They describe the drop in oil as “likely a short-term response”. International aviation and shipping emissions are each projected to fall by 1%. Aviation’s decline is partly due to reduced activity in the Middle East.
“A reduction driven partly by geopolitical shocks is not a sustainable climate solution,” said Pierre Friedlingstein of the University of Exeter, who led the study. Glen Peters of CICERO put it more bluntly: “A drop in emissions in one year is not a peak unless it is driven by structural change.”
The country picture
The largest emitters are moving in different directions:
- China: 32% of global fossil emissions; projected down 0.9%. Its coal use edges up 0.3% while oil falls sharply.
- United States: down 1.3%, mainly from coal, which had spiked in 2025 because of high gas prices and a cold winter.
- European Union: down 1.5%.
- Japan: down 1%.
- India: up 4.4%, above its average annual growth of 3.5% over the past decade.
- Rest of the world: down 0.7%, led by a fall in oil.
The Global Carbon Budget’s public summary gives no fuel breakdown or explanation for India’s rise. It is consistent, however, with the country’s rapid growth in electricity demand, industrial output and road transport.
India in context
India’s position is easy to misread. Its total emissions are the world’s third-largest and growing, but they start from a low base per person. India’s per-capita fossil CO₂ emissions remain well under half the global average, and its cumulative historical contribution to warming is small relative to its population. Its development needs, for electricity, housing, cooling and mobility, are real.
India has committed to cutting the emissions intensity of its economy by 45% from 2005 levels by 2030, and to reach net zero by 2070. It already has half of its installed electricity capacity in non-fossil sources. Installed capacity is not the same as generation, however, and coal still supplies most of the country’s electricity. India’s case at COP31, set out by its delegation this week, is that faster decarbonisation in developing countries depends on finance and technology from rich ones. That case rests on these same numbers.
The atmosphere keeps accumulating
Whatever happens to fossil emissions, the atmospheric concentration of CO₂ keeps rising, because emissions remain far above what natural sinks absorb:
- Land-use emissions: projected to rise to 5.1 billion tonnes, linked partly to peat fires and forest degradation in South-East Asia as El Niño conditions developed.
- Total emissions: fossil plus land use, 43.3 billion tonnes, up from 42.8 billion in 2025.
- Concentration: about 427.7 parts per million in 2026, 54% above pre-industrial levels.
There is some good news on the land carbon sink, which the report says has returned to former levels after severe weakening during the 2023–24 El Niño. But the authors warn that the powerful 2026 El Niño “is expected to have a significant impact in the coming year”. Novel carbon-dioxide-removal technologies, such as direct air capture, currently offset less than 30 minutes of annual fossil emissions.
The shrinking budget
The carbon budget is the total amount of CO₂ that can still be emitted while keeping a reasonable chance of limiting warming to a given level. For 1.5 °C, the report puts the remainder at about 150 billion tonnes, less than four years of emissions at the current rate. In practice, a sustained 1.5 °C limit is slipping out of reach, and the debate is shifting towards how far above it warming will go, and for how long.
Is the peak near?
A companion analysis in Nature Climate Change, led by Corinne Le Quéré of the University of East Anglia, offers a more hopeful reading. Solar, wind and electric vehicles met between 64% and 79% of the emissions from new energy demand projected to 2028. In 2025, 59 countries emitted less than in 2019 while growing their economies. Solar and wind avoided an estimated 4.1 billion tonnes of CO₂ in 2025.
“A further acceleration could turn the tide on global emissions within a few years,” Le Quéré said. The paper concludes that a sustained peak and decline “could be a few years away”, provided clean-energy deployment speeds up.
