Fossil Fuel Emissions Set for First Drop Since 2020 as Iran War and Renewables Bite

The Global Carbon Budget report, released Nov 10 as nations gather for the UN's COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Turkey, projects fossil fuel emissions will fall 0.4% in 2026. That would be the first yearly drop since 2020, when the pandemic froze trade, transport and the global economy. Fossil carbon dioxide emissions are still expected to hit 38.2 billion tonnes this year.

Two forces are doing the pushing. The US-led war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz sent crude prices soaring and oil consumption sliding, while solar panels, wind farms and electric vehicles now meet two thirds of the growth in global energy demand. Oil-related emissions are projected to drop 1.9%, a move researchers called likely a short-term response to the energy shock. Gas emissions fall 0.3%, but coal emissions climb 0.6%.

Pierre Friedlingstein, who led the study published in Earth System Science Data and directs the Global Carbon Budget Office at the University of Exeter, didn't sugarcoat the win. A decline driven partly by geopolitical shocks, he said, is not a sustainable climate solution. The long-term answer, he added, remains the rapid deployment of clean energy technologies.

Corinne Le Quere, a climate change science professor at the University of East Anglia, flagged the risk of a snapback. Emissions rebounded after past shocks like Covid-19 and the global financial crisis once economies recovered, she said at a media briefing, and a repeat is likely when the oil tensions go away.

Counting land-use change such as deforestation, total CO2 emissions are projected to rise to 43.3 billion tonnes from 42.8 billion tonnes in 2025. Peat fires and forest degradation in South-east Asia, tied to drier conditions from an exceptionally strong El Nino, are partly to blame. The world's remaining carbon budget sits at 150 billion tonnes — about four years of emissions at current rates. The UN declared in September that the long-term 1.5C Paris target would be missed within years.