Global Carbon Budget 2026 Projects First Fall in Fossil Fuel CO2 Since 2020

The Global Carbon Project released the 21st edition of its annual Global Carbon Budget on November 10, 2026, projecting that global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels will fall 0.4 percent in 2026 to 38.2 billion tonnes. The figure marks the first annual decline since 2020, the year pandemic lockdowns emptied roads and grounded fleets, and it arrives at a moment when emissions had otherwise been expected to edge higher again. The assessment was presented at the COP31 climate talks in Antalya, Turkey, and published as a preprint in the journal Earth System Science Data, with more than 140 scientists contributing to the work.

For most of the past five years the direction of travel had been upward. Fossil emissions rebounded sharply after the pandemic shock and kept climbing as economies recovered and energy demand grew. By 2025, total CO2 emissions including land-use change had reached 42.8 billion tonnes. The new projection does not reverse that trend so much as interrupt it: the modest dip in fossil fuel burning is more than offset by rising emissions from deforestation and land degradation, pushing the overall total to a record 43.3 billion tonnes.

The immediate cause of the fossil decline is a war. The conflict in Iran, and the associated disruption to oil and gas supplies through the Strait of Hormuz, sent energy prices soaring and forced consumers and industries to economise. CICERO, the Oslo based climate research centre, described the drop as unexpected when the year began and attributed it primarily to reduced oil and gas supply following the conflicts in Iran and Ukraine. That shock landed on top of pre-existing trends that were already slowing emissions growth, including the rapid build out of cheap solar and wind power and the spread of electric vehicles.

Land use adds a second, less encouraging story. Emissions from land-use change are projected to rise to 5.1 billion tonnes in 2026, above the 4.9 billion tonne annual average recorded over 2016 to 2025, driven by peat fires and forest degradation in Southeast Asia linked to El Nino conditions. The result is a budget that looks better at the smokestack and worse across the landscape, with the two effects pulling in opposite directions.

Key Facts

The headline number is a 0.4 percent reduction in fossil CO2 to 38.2 billion tonnes, with an uncertainty range of minus 1.5 percent to plus 0.6 percent. Oil emissions are projected to fall 1.9 percent, which CICERO and other summaries rounded to about 2 percent, while natural gas falls 0.3 percent and coal rises 0.6 percent. International aviation and shipping are each projected to fall 1 percent.

Country level figures vary widely. China, which produces 32 percent of global fossil emissions, is projected to cut output by 0.9 percent, helped by a possible fall of more than 5 percent in total oil consumption as electrification spreads. The United States, at 13 percent of the global total, falls 1.3 percent, the European Union 1.5 percent and Japan 1.0 percent. India, at 8 percent, rises 4.4 percent on a 5.9 percent increase in coal emissions and a dry monsoon. The rest of the world falls 0.7 percent.

Total CO2 including land-use change rises from 42.8 billion tonnes in 2025 to 43.3 billion tonnes in 2026. Atmospheric CO2 is set to reach 427.7 ppm, 54 percent above pre-industrial levels, a figure CICERO rounded to 428 ppm and described as 53 percent above pre-industrial. The remaining carbon budget consistent with a 1.5C limit is now 150 billion tonnes, equivalent to less than four years of emissions at the current rate.

Clean energy is doing much of the heavy lifting on demand. While global energy demand continues to rise, two-thirds of the increase is being met by solar and wind power and electric vehicles. ABC News reported on November 10, 2026 that the International Energy Agency separately forecasts global renewable capacity to grow almost 4,800 GW over 2026 to 2031, 57 percent more than in the previous six years.

There is also evidence of decoupling. ABC News reported on November 10, 2026 that CSIRO chief research scientist and Global Carbon Project executive director Pep Canadell said 40 countries had cut fossil emissions over the past decade while their economies grew, double the count of the previous decade. CICERO put the same group at 26 percent of global fossil emissions over 2016 to 2025, against only 22 countries in the decade before.

Analysis

The bigger picture here is that a single year of lower emissions produced by a supply shock is not a peak. CICERO research professor Glen Peters put the distinction plainly when he said that a drop in emissions in one year is not a peak unless it is driven by structural change. The 2026 decline passes almost every test of a cyclical event: it was unforeseen in January, it coincides with a violent price signal in oil and gas, and its statistical range stretches from a 1.5 percent fall to a 0.6 percent rise.

The authors themselves are careful not to overclaim. Pierre Friedlingstein, lead author of the budget and director of the Global Carbon Budget Office at the University of Exeter, said that a decline in fossil CO2 emissions is encouraging, but that a reduction driven partly by geopolitical shocks is not a sustainable climate solution. That sentence is the hinge of the whole report. The same document that records the first fall since 2020 also records that clean energy growth is not yet fast enough to make the fall durable.

There is a genuine structural signal buried in the noise, however. Forty countries have now reduced fossil emissions while growing their economies, up from 22 in the previous decade, and those countries account for 26 percent of global fossil emissions. That is what a decoupling trend looks like in its early stages. The Guardian reported on November 10, 2026 that Bill Hare of Climate Analytics described the overall result as a flatline rather than a decline, and as statistically indistinguishable from zero, which is a fair description of the aggregate even if it undersells the country level divergence.

The mechanism also matters for what comes next. CICERO said in its November 10, 2026 analysis that the response to this crisis could produce a more lasting reduction than either the pandemic or the Global Financial Crisis, because the shock hit oil supplies directly rather than financial markets. Drivers who traded a petrol car for an electric one do not necessarily switch back when the Strait of Hormuz reopens. Fear is a poor climate policy, but it can accelerate decisions that price signals alone had failed to force.

Why It Matters

The arithmetic of the remaining budget is unforgiving. At 150 billion tonnes and current emission rates, the world has less than four years before the 1.5C limit is likely to be permanently exceeded, and temperatures have already been above 1.5C for more than two years. A 0.4 percent dip, against an uncertainty range that includes growth, barely dents that timeline. The Guardian reported on November 10, 2026 that El Nino is heating sea and air further, which makes the next few years harder rather than easier.

The report also lands in the middle of a diplomatic moment. More than 90 heads of state and government and high-level representatives from more than 190 countries are attending COP31 in Antalya, where the budget was presented on the morning of November 10. A headline about falling fossil emissions is politically convenient for delegations looking to argue that the transition is underway. The land-use numbers, and the record total of 43.3 billion tonnes, are the inconvenient counterweight that negotiators will have to address.

For investors and grid planners, the demand side is the more actionable finding. Two-thirds of the growth in global energy demand is now being met by solar, wind and electric vehicles, which means the marginal megawatt is increasingly clean even as total consumption rises. The IEA forecast of almost 4,800 GW of new renewable capacity over 2026 to 2031, 57 percent more than the previous six years, suggests that the substitution rate can keep improving if the policy and supply chains hold.

Next Up

The immediate test arrives in 2027. A record El Nino is expected to weaken the land carbon sink and push a large atmospheric increase, even if fossil emissions continue to drift lower, which would widen the gap between what happens at the tailpipe and what happens in the atmosphere. Watch whether oil demand rebounds once shipping through the Strait of Hormuz normalises, and whether coal growth in India and elsewhere outpaces the clean additions.

Watch, too, whether the 40 country decoupling group keeps expanding and whether COP31 converts the budget into commitments on deforestation, the one line item that turned a fossil decline into a total emissions record. The 2026 numbers give both sides of the argument material: a genuine first drop since the pandemic, and a carbon budget that leaves under four years on the clock.