The world has reduced its carbon emissions.
Global carbon pollution has fallen slightly this year, but that has more to do with the oil crises caused by the Iran war than with any measures the world has taken to combat climate change.
In 2026, the world released 42.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. According to scientists from the World Carbon Project, this is 0.4% less than last year. They found that emissions from oil production fell by almost 2%, from natural gas by 0.3% and from coal increased by 0.6%.
"The decline sounds good, but it is mainly due to the war in Iran and the events in the Strait of Hormuz," said co-researcher Glenn Peters, a scientist at the CICERO Center for International Climate Research in Norway. “So in some ways it's a bit of good news, but for the wrong reasons. ".
Most of the world's biggest carbon emitters - China, the US, Europe, Japan - have seen emissions drop by about 1% this year, but Peters attributed this to the oil crisis. Fossil fuel emissions in India increased by 4.4% this year.
This is the third time that global carbon dioxide emissions have decreased in the 21st century. The two previous cases were related to the 2009 global recession and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. During the last two crises, people hoped that the recovery from the shocks would emphasize clean energy, but in the end the world went back to the way it was before.