After starting the year predicting growth, updated estimates from the International Energy Agency (IEA) began to indicate a small drop in emissions associated with the use of oil, gas and coal.
The projected reduction is around 0.5% compared to 2025, according to an analysis by Carbon Brief, a British website specializing in climate change, based on the agency's forecasts.
In volume, this represents approximately 190 million tons of less CO₂.
The number is relevant because drops in global fossil fuel emissions are rare. But it also requires caution: the decline corresponds to a small fraction of the almost 40 billion tons of CO₂ emitted annually by burning coal, oil and gas.
Furthermore, the estimate is still a projection for the whole of 2026, and may change according to the duration of the conflict, energy prices and the recovery of fuel supplies in the coming months.
See what the data indicates so far:
📉 Fossil emissions could end 2026 around 0.5% below 2025.
🛢️ Oil accounts for much of the change: the IEA forecast went from growth in demand at the beginning of the year to a reduction of around 2.5 million barrels per day in September.
🔥 Gas also lost space in projections, following supply restrictions and higher prices.
🪨 Coal is heading in the opposite direction: global consumption is expected to grow and reach a new record this year.
🌡️ An annual drop in emissions, however, does not mean a drop in CO₂ in the atmosphere. The world would continue to emit tens of billions of tons and increase the concentration of gas.
Data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), checked by g1, show how the projection changed throughout the year. The movement was first highlighted by Carbon Brief and then highlighted in an analysis by the newspaper “The Washington Post”.
In January, the projection indicated that emissions associated with fossil fuels would be 281 million tons above those in 2025.
The review of oil demand turned this result down to 260 million tons. Afterwards, the new forecast for gas deepened the decline to 454 million tons below 2025.
The projected increase in coal offset some of this reduction. As a result, the most recent estimate points to a balance of approximately 191 million tons of CO₂ less than in 2025.
The difference between the expectation made in January and the current projection therefore amounts to around 472 million tons of CO₂.
⚠️ This, however, also does not mean that 472 million tons were effectively no longer emitted. The number shows how much the forecast for the year has changed since January.
This distinction is important because part of the change results from predictions made before the war that were not confirmed, and not just from an absolute reduction in consumption already recorded.
Small drop, upward trajectory
CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels and industry have been increasing since the Industrial Revolution and rose from around 22.5 billion tons in 1992 to 38.6 billion in 2024.
In this interval, there were few relevant retreats. After the international financial crisis, emissions fell in 2009, but grew rapidly again the following year.
In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic caused a much greater reduction, followed by a recovery.
Therefore, according to experts, a possible drop in 2026 does not allow us to conclude, for now, that global emissions have entered a permanent reduction trajectory.
Claudio Angelo, international policy coordinator at the Climate Observatory, says that the main care is not to confuse a cyclical change in the energy market with a structural transformation of the energy system.
“It may even be that emissions remain somewhat stable, or there is a small drop this year because of this. But that is not what will solve climate change,” he says.
For Angelo, the most relevant aspect of the crisis may appear less in the result of a single year and more in the decisions that governments, companies and consumers take in the face of high prices and supply difficulties.
“More than looking at the ton of carbon that has been reduced here and there, you need to look at what the war is doing to energy markets around the world.”
The shock caused by the conflict mainly affected oil and gas. With supply disruptions and higher prices, the IEA's forecast for global oil demand was reduced throughout 2026.
In January, the agency still projected an increase of approximately 930 thousand barrels per day. In September, the estimate already pointed to a demand 2.5 million barrels per day lower than that of 2025.
In gas, the movement was similar. The growth forecast made at the beginning of the year gave way to an expectation of a drop in consumption.
Coal, however, shows the limits of this change. The IEA predicts a 1.2% increase in world consumption in 2026, to a record 8.94 billion tons, as some countries began to rely more on fuel in the face of difficulties involving oil and gas.
In other words, the war did not cause a uniform reduction in fossil fuels. She changed the combination between them.
Angelo states that persistently high oil and gas prices can accelerate decisions that were already taking place, such as investments in electrification and renewable sources. But he emphasizes that it is still too early to know whether these changes will be permanent.
“It could cause a permanent shift in energy markets, which could — and the verb ‘may’ is important — lead to a faster weaning from fossil fuels.”
And there are signs both ways. The search for clean energy technologies continues to advance in large markets, at the same time that countries increase the use of coal and oil and gas producers maintain expansion plans.
The IEA itself predicts a recovery in oil demand in 2027. This means that part of the reduction observed this year could disappear when supply conditions improve.
History reinforces this caution. During the pandemic, global fossil emissions fell by around 5% in 2020, a much larger decline than currently projected. The following year, they grew again. After the 2008 financial crisis, a similar movement occurred.
There is yet another difference between emitting less and reducing the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere.
Even if the projection of a 0.5% drop is confirmed, the planet will continue to add billions of tons of CO₂ to the atmosphere. Gas accumulates for a long time, so a small reduction only slightly slows the increase.
More recent measurements show this difference. The global average concentration of CO₂ reached 423.9 parts per million in 2024, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), around 52% above the pre-industrial level.
In 2026, measurements taken at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, one of the world's main reference stations for monitoring the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, again exceeded 430 parts per million during the annual peak.
