Heat-Trapping Carbon Pollution Drops, but Scientists Cite the Iran War Rather than Energy Progress
Scientists say the drop is the third this century, but they warn it is driven mainly by an oil shock and may not last.
- Global fossil-fuel CO2 emissions decreased 0.4% this year, according to scientists from the Global Carbon Project, a slight decline primarily driven by oil supply shocks stemming from the war in Iran.
- The war in Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping artery for petroleum, causing oil emissions to drop nearly 2% while natural gas fell 0.3% and coal rose 0.6%.
- Despite the fossil-fuel drop, overall carbon emissions rose 1% due to deforestation and human-caused peat fires increasing faster than fossil fuel burning decreased, with total emissions reaching 42.2 billion tons.
- India saw fossil-fuel pollution surge 4.4% this year, while major polluters including China, the United States, Europe, and Japan showed about a 1% drop in emissions, according to the study.
- Experts debate whether this decline represents a permanent shift or a temporary response to oil shocks, particularly as global emissions continue at a rate of about 1,335 tons per second.
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74 Articles
After an average annual increase of 0.9% over the last ten years, emissions from the combustion of oil, gas and coal - the main drivers of climate change - are expected to fall by 0.4% in 2026, according to the "Global Carbon Budget", a scientific reference report published on Tuesday at COP31 in Antalya, Turkey. This decline, due in particular to the rise in oil prices resulting from the war in the Middle East and the development of renewable e…
The global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) caused by the use of coal, oil and natural gas may have a small drop in 2026, points to the new edition of the Global Carbon Budget, an annual report that monitors how much CO2 the world emits and how much it is absorbed by forests and oceans. The central projection points to a drop of 0.4% compared to 2025, which would lead to fossil emissions of 38.2 billion tons this year. But the result is still u…
The Global Carbon Project reports that emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas are expected to fall by 0.4% this year, drive by the growth of renewable energy and the thinking crisis in the Middle East.
In 2026, for the first time since the end of the pandemic, mankind will emit less carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, but another sector is likely to lose the global carbon footprint of the year.
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