Iran war helps fuel global drop in fossil fuel emissions — but there’s a catch
(Image credit: 2026 Global Carbon Budget report) Fossil-fuel-linked CO 2 emissions from the rest of the world are projected to decrease by 0.7%, driven mainly by a 1.9% drop in oil emissions.
Key points
- The war with Iran has resulted in restricted fuel availability and high prices, with a corresponding reduction in demand Joeri Rogelj, climate scientist, University College London Part of the 0.4% reduction in CO 2 emissions is attributable to 40 countries that have cut emissions over the past decade while growing their economies.
- (Image credit: 2026 Global Carbon Budget report) It is the first time annual carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions from fossil fuels have fallen since the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
- When it comes to some of the biggest emitters, annual CO 2 emissions are projected to decrease by 0.9% in China, 1.3% in the U.S., 1.5% in the European Union and 1% in Japan, but India's annual CO 2 emissions are projected to grow by 4.4%.
This year is projected to have a slight decrease in fossil-fuel emissions, but that is partly due to price increases caused by the Iran conflict.
Additional details
- "Based only on the demand for energy, which has grown, we would have expected an increase in fossil CO 2 emissions by about 0.8 gigatonnes," said study co-author Judith Hauck, a biogeoscientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Germany.
- About two-thirds of that increase in demand is being met by solar and wind power and electric vehicles, showing that clean technologies are making a real difference in reducing global emissions, Hauck said.
- "So only together with the energy crisis did we bring the change in emissions down to negative," Hauck told Live Science, adding that she expects CO 2 emissions to rebound if the conflict ends, as they did after the temporary emissions drop caused by the lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- While fossil fuel emissions and demand for oil are declining globally, overall demand for energy is actually increasing.
- tons) of emissions of the climate-warming greenhouse gas CO 2 from fossil fuel sources this year.
How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →
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