The world's fossil-fuel and cement carbon dioxide emissions may edge down in 2026, but the planet's total human-caused CO₂ output is still headed higher. The Global Carbon Project's November 10 assessment projects a 0.4% decline in fossil emissions to 38.2 billion tonnes, while combined emissions from fossil fuels and land-use change rise to a record 43.3 billion tonnes. The projected fossil dip is also smaller than the uncertainty surrounding it, so it is not yet evidence of a lasting global peak.
A small fossil dip, not an established decline
The Global Carbon Budget estimates fossil-fuel and cement emissions at 38.2 gigatonnes of CO₂ in 2026, compared with 38.4 gigatonnes in 2025. The central change is minus 0.4%, but the projection's uncertainty interval stretches from a 1.5% fall to a 0.6% increase. Because that range includes zero, the data cannot establish even the direction of this year's change with confidence. Researchers are using available observations and energy data to project a year that has not ended, rather than reporting a complete measured annual total. The result is more accurately described as a possible levelling-off than a confirmed turnaround.
The study is the 21st annual global carbon budget, prepared by more than 140 scientists and released during COP31 in Antalya. Its detailed 2026 paper appeared November 10 as a preprint in Earth System Science Data and remains under peer review. Reuters reported the possible fossil decline, while independent comments reported by Le Monde described a statistical flatline rather than a proved fall. The carbon budget's historical estimates are also revised as new data arrive; comparing this projection with past editions without accounting for methodological changes can create a misleading impression of precision.
Sources: Scientists expect global fossil fuel emissions to ease this year · Fossil CO₂ emissions decrease in 2026 · Global Carbon Budget 2026 (preprint, under review; DOI: 10.5194/essd-2026-895) · Fossil fuel-related CO₂ emissions show slight global drop, an encouraging but insufficient sign
Oil prices explain much of the movement
The strongest projected shift is in oil, whose CO₂ emissions fall 1.9%. Emissions from natural gas are projected to slip 0.3%, while coal rises 0.6%. The research links much of the oil reduction to disruption of supply after the conflict involving Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, which raised energy prices and restrained consumption. Reuters likewise reported the supply shock as an important factor. Expanding renewable electricity and electric vehicles are working in the same downward direction, but a fall caused partly by higher fuel costs is not equivalent to permanently retiring fossil-powered systems.
That distinction matters for what happens next. If supplies recover and prices ease, drivers, airlines and industrial buyers may use more petroleum again. A durable emissions decline would instead depend on replacing high-carbon equipment and power generation with alternatives over successive years. The Global Carbon Project's researchers caution that a single downward annual estimate does not demonstrate a peak. Even the 2026 fossil projection does not show that every fuel is shrinking: coal's expected increase is a reminder that different energy markets respond to shocks and cleaner technologies at different speeds.
Sources: Scientists expect global fossil fuel emissions to ease this year · Fossil CO₂ emissions decrease in 2026 · Analysis: Fossil-fuel CO₂ emissions set to dip in 2026 as Iran conflict hits oil use
Clean technology is preventing growth, not ending it
An accompanying study published in Nature Climate Change offers a second way to read the numbers. Its researchers estimate that additional solar power, wind power and electric vehicles offset roughly two-thirds of the emissions growth that rising energy demand would otherwise have produced in 2026. Carbon Brief's breakdown puts the avoided increase at around 0.54 gigatonnes against approximately 0.78 gigatonnes of demand-driven growth. This is a comparison with a hypothetical higher-emissions world, not a finding that two-thirds of actual emissions have vanished or that clean energy already meets two-thirds of global energy use.
The gains are meaningful nonetheless. The Global Carbon Project says solar and wind power alone avoided an estimated 4.1 gigatonnes of CO₂ in 2025 and could avoid 4.6 gigatonnes in 2026. Yet demand is still growing, and the accompanying paper says faster deployment will be necessary to make a sustained emissions peak likely. The study's avoided-emissions estimates depend on assumptions about which fossil generation or vehicles would have been used without clean technology; they should be read as analytical counterfactuals, not directly measured tonnes removed from the atmosphere.
Sources: Fossil CO₂ emissions decrease in 2026 · Analysis: Fossil-fuel CO₂ emissions set to dip in 2026 as Iran conflict hits oil use · The Global Carbon Budget: FAQs 2026 · A further acceleration of clean energy is needed for global CO₂ emissions to peak and decline
National trends point in different directions
The report projects 2026 fossil emissions falling 0.9% in China, 1.3% in the United States and 1.5% in the European Union, while India's emissions rise 4.4%. These are rates of change, not measurements of each economy's total contribution or a ranking of climate responsibility. China's projected change reflects a sharp oil decline and expanding renewable electricity, according to the study. The US estimate is influenced by lower coal emissions after an unusual rise in 2025. India's outlook includes growing coal use alongside a large infrastructure and energy demand base.
There is a longer-term development behind the yearly variation. The Global Carbon Project identifies 40 economies that significantly reduced fossil emissions while growing economically during 2016–2025, compared with 22 in the preceding decade. Together those 40 account for about 26% of present global fossil emissions. That evidence suggests that economic expansion and carbon growth can be separated in some circumstances, but it does not erase the absolute volume of emissions produced worldwide. Nor should one country's annual change be treated as definitive proof that a policy succeeded or failed.
Sources: Fossil CO₂ emissions decrease in 2026 · Analysis: Fossil-fuel CO₂ emissions set to dip in 2026 as Iran conflict hits oil use · The Global Carbon Budget: FAQs 2026
Land use pushes the total to a record
The headline reverses when the researchers add net emissions from land-use change, including forest clearing, degradation, peat drainage and fires. That component is projected to increase from 4.4 gigatonnes in 2025 to 5.1 gigatonnes in 2026. As a result, combined human-caused CO₂ emissions rise from 42.8 to 43.3 gigatonnes, the highest annual total in the project's series. The assessment identifies peat fires and forest degradation in Southeast Asia, associated with dry El Niño conditions, as major contributors to the land-use increase. A small fossil dip therefore cannot be used to claim that total emissions declined.
Land-use accounting is particularly uncertain. The Global Carbon Budget combines land-cover data and bookkeeping models, while forests both emit carbon when disturbed and absorb it as they recover or grow. These processes are not interchangeable with the amount released from fuel combustion, and estimates can change when land-use information improves. The project's preprint flags substantial uncertainty in land-use emissions. The recent long-term trend is more favorable than one exceptional year suggests: average net land-use emissions were lower in 2016–2025 than in the preceding decade. But the projected 2026 reversal still matters to the global total.
Sources: Fossil CO₂ emissions decrease in 2026 · Global Carbon Budget 2026 (preprint, under review; DOI: 10.5194/essd-2026-895) · Analysis: Fossil-fuel CO₂ emissions set to dip in 2026 as Iran conflict hits oil use
The carbon-budget clock is not a deadline
The researchers put the remaining CO₂ budget for a roughly 50% chance of limiting long-term warming to 1.5°C at 150 gigatonnes from the start of 2027. At current annual emissions, that amounts to less than four years. This is not a date on which the planet suddenly crosses a physical cliff. The budget connects cumulative future CO₂ emissions to a probability of staying within a warming threshold, subject to scientific uncertainty and assumptions about other climate-forcing pollutants. As long as net carbon emissions remain positive, atmospheric CO₂ continues to accumulate even when an annual growth rate slows.
The next meaningful test is whether lower fossil emissions persist beyond an oil-supply shock while land-use emissions also begin to fall. Success would show up in repeated measurements and revisions, not in one narrow forecast. COP31 delegates now have figures illustrating both progress and its limits: clean energy is restraining what could have been faster emissions growth, yet total CO₂ is still projected to set a record. The preprint may change through review, and the full-year 2026 estimates will be reassessed. For now, a possible fossil pause is news; a durable global decline remains unproven.
Sources: Fossil CO₂ emissions decrease in 2026 · Global Carbon Budget 2026 (preprint, under review; DOI: 10.5194/essd-2026-895) · The Global Carbon Budget: FAQs 2026 · Fossil fuel-related CO₂ emissions show slight global drop, an encouraging but insufficient sign
