New research data from the climate conference in Turkey shows an expansion of renewable energy and a decline in oil consumption. One country in particular stands out for its development.
Opencast lignite mining with connected power plants: The burning of coal worldwide is increasing slightly this year. Photo: dpa
The Global Carbon Project report expects global CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels to fall by 0.4 percent to 38.2 billion tons in 2026.
Burning of oil is expected to fall by 1.9 percent, while coal consumption will increase by 0.6 percent.
China is expected to cut its emissions by 0.9 percent and contribute half of global savings from renewable energy and electric cars.
The USA expects a decrease of 1.3 percent, India an increase of 4.4 percent and the EU expects a decrease of 1.5 percent in its CO₂ emissions.
The summary was created and editorially checked using AI.
Berlin. Although global energy demand is increasing, global CO₂ emissions from burning fossil fuels will decrease slightly in 2026. This is the assessment of the report published on Tuesday morning by the international research association “Global Carbon Project”.
A decrease of 0.4 percent compared to the previous year to 38.2 billion tons of CO₂ is expected. The main reasons are a strong increase in renewable energies and a significant drop in oil consumption, “probably a short-term reaction to the energy shock triggered by the conflict with Iran,” according to the report by more than 130 scientists.
From Germany, researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, the Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research and the Munich Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU) were among those involved.
A decrease of 1.9 percent is forecast for the combustion of oil and a decrease of 0.3 percent for the combustion of gas. In contrast, there was an increase of 0.6 percent in the burning of coal.
However, according to the researchers, the growth in renewable energies is not yet fast enough to permanently reduce global CO₂ emissions from burning coal, oil and gas. Study leader Pierre Friedlingstein from the University of Exeter says: “A decline in CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels is encouraging, but a reduction partly due to geopolitical shocks does not represent a sustainable climate solution.”
At the World Climate Conference in Paris in 2015, the global community resolved to limit global warming to less than two degrees compared to pre-industrial times. The number was later refined to 1.5 degrees in order to keep the expected consequences of climate change somewhat manageable. The United Nations currently expects warming to reach 2.8 degrees by the end of the century. Scientists are therefore pushing to accelerate measures against global warming.
Global CO₂ emissions from changes in land use have fallen over the past decade but are expected to rise slightly this year due to wildfires or deforestation. Total CO₂ emissions therefore increase from 42.8 to 43.3 billion tons. Other emissions that are harmful to greenhouse gases, such as methane emissions, are not taken into account in this report.
Like oceans, forests are natural carbon sinks. According to the report, these have captured 49 percent of man-made emissions over the past ten years. The scientists point out that climate change is having a negative impact on storage capacity.
According to the report, reforestation removed a good two billion tons per year from the atmosphere between 2016 and 2025. Emissions from deforestation were almost twice as high. Novel CO₂ extraction processes, such as bioenergy with CO₂ capture and storage, have so far played a minor role. “Novel CO₂ extraction processes only offset 30 minutes of global fossil CO₂ emissions in an entire year,” says Julia Pongratz, a geographer at the LMU Munich and part of the report’s core team.
A rapid reduction in fossil emissions and a stop to deforestation must remain the top priority, says Pongratz. At the same time, an expansion of nature-based and innovative CO₂ extraction capacities is necessary if residual emissions that are difficult to avoid are to be offset and greenhouse gas neutrality is to be achieved.
Falling emissions from the world's largest emitter
Fundamentally, decarbonization is making progress: Between 2016 and 2025, the number of economies that were able to reduce their CO₂ emissions while increasing their economic growth rose to 40 - almost twice as many as in the previous decade, the report says.
An overview of the largest emitters shows:
China: CO₂ emissions from the world's largest emitter are expected to fall by 0.9 percent this year, the research association suspects. In 2025 they had increased even further. This is of considerable importance because the People's Republic accounts for 32 percent of global CO₂ emissions. Emissions from oil fell, emissions from coal-fired power rose slightly, and the expansion of renewable energies made strong progress.
According to the researchers, China accounts for half of the world's emissions, which have been saved through wind and solar energy as well as an increasing number of electric cars.
Climate conference
The Trump effect: uncertainty for oil and gas, momentum for the energy transition
Trump is betting on oil and gas, but the Iran war and the energy crisis make renewables more attractive. What does his defeat in the US midterm elections mean for the climate conference in Turkey?
USA: Here the Global Carbon Project expects a decline of 1.3 percent, primarily due to falling emissions from burning coal. The share of US emissions is 13 percent of global emissions.
Related topics
ChinaEuropean UnionIndiaUSAClimate change
India: An increase of 4.4 percent is expected here compared to 2025, more than the average annual growth of 3.5 percent in the past decade. The country accounts for eight percent of global CO₂ emissions.
EU: The forecast is a minus of 1.5 percent. The proportion of CO₂ emissions is six percent.
More: How Trump is unintentionally driving the energy transition
Published according to the editorial standards of the Handelsblatt. You can find more information in our guidelines.
