Global carbon emissions and decarbonization in 2025Nature Reviews Earth & Environment (2026)Cite this articleGlobal CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes increased by +0.7% within 2025. However, large-scale deployment of clean electricity sources during the year avoided 10.3 Gt of global CO2 emissions, so that power sector emissions declined by –0.9% relative to 2024. As the remaining carbon budget for limiting global warming to 1.5 °C is projected to be exhausted by 2029 at a 50% likelihood, further accelerating the shift away from fossil fuels is essential for staying within the 2 °C temperature rise limit.
Global carbon emissions and decarbonization in 2025
Nature Reviews Earth & Environment (2026)Cite this article
Global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes increased by +0.7% within 2025. However, large-scale deployment of clean electricity sources during the year avoided 10.3 Gt of global CO2 emissions, so that power sector emissions declined by –0.9% relative to 2024. As the remaining carbon budget for limiting global warming to 1.5 °C is projected to be exhausted by 2029 at a 50% likelihood, further accelerating the shift away from fossil fuels is essential for staying within the 2 °C temperature rise limit.
Key points:-
Global emissions reached a record of 37.2 Gt CO2 in 2025, yet the annual growth rate has flattened to 0.7%.
Global power sector emissions dropped by –0.9%, indicating a structural decoupling of electricity demand from fossil fuel consumption.
China and India entered an emission plateau owing to massive renewable expansion, whereas the USA and EU saw emission rebounds following policy reversals and clean energy stagnation.
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Data availability
Daily CO2 emissions by sector and by country from 1 January 2019 onwards are available from the Carbon Monitor database (https://carbonmonitor.org).
Global annual CO2 emissions from 1970 to 2022 were sourced from national greenhouse gas inventories in Biennial Update Reports. Data gaps were filled using annual datasets from the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric
Data on global land-use change emissions are available from the Global Carbon Budget 2025.
Electricity production data by energy source from 1985 to 2024 are available from Statistical Review of World Energy 2024, Energy Institute (EI).
MJF Lion ER YK Sharma
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