- Greenhouse gas emissions excluding land use rose 0.7% to a record 54.1 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2025.
- China’s emissions were almost flat and India recorded a marginal decline, but the US produced the largest absolute increase among major emitters.
- Falling UK and EU territorial emissions remain important, although industrial closures and imported carbon complicate the picture.
Global greenhouse gas emissions hit another record in 2025, highlighting the gap between the growth in clean energy investment and the absolute decline in fossil fuel use required to meet international climate goals.
Emissions from human activity rose by 0.7% to 54.1 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent, excluding land use, land-use change and forestry, according to the European Commission’s EDGAR emissions database. Including land-use emissions, the total reached approximately 55 Gt, a 0.9% annual increase.
The result was not uniform. China’s emissions increased by only 0.1%, while India’s fell by 0.2%. It was the first time both countries had simultaneously kept emissions broadly stable or reduced them, according to the Commission’s Joint Research Centre.
The US recorded a 2.2% rise and accounted for the largest absolute increase among the world’s major emitters. Separate preliminary analysis from the Rhodium Group estimated a 2.4% increase, driven particularly by higher emissions from buildings and electricity generation.
China, the US, India, the EU, Russia and Indonesia together produced 62% of global emissions. Six of the 16 economies responsible for more than 1% of the total achieved reductions, including the EU, Australia, Brazil and Japan.
A separate Global Carbon Budget assessment estimated that fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions alone rose by around 1.1% to a record 38.1 Gt, reinforcing the finding that clean energy deployment has not yet produced a sustained global peak.
Plateau, not peak
The near-flat results for China and India may be the most meaningful part of the data. Both countries are adding renewable generation, energy storage and electric vehicles at enormous scale, giving rise to the possibility that structural changes in their energy systems are beginning to restrain emissions growth.
One year does not establish a trend, however. Weather, economic activity, hydropower availability and industrial output can all move annual emissions substantially. An extended plateau would still need to become a rapid decline if the world is to approach the Paris Agreement’s temperature limit goals.
Emissions from international aviation rose by 5.1%, while maritime transport increased by 1.4%. These sectors remain difficult to decarbonise and sit partly outside national policy frameworks, making them a growing test of whether low-carbon fuels can progress beyond demonstration projects.
Europe continued to reduce emissions, but only marginally. EU emissions fell 0.2% during 2025 and were 35.6% below 1990 levels. The bloc now accounts for 5.8% of the global total, although its per-capita emissions of 7.1 tonnes remain above the global average of 6.6 tonnes.
The UK’s provisional territorial emissions declined by 2% to 367 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, according to official government statistics. They are now 54% below 1990 levels.
UK industrial emissions dropped by 12%, partly because of blast furnace closures and lower gas consumption, while transport emissions increased by 2%. Closure-led reductions improve the territorial inventory but do not necessarily reduce the UK’s carbon footprint if production and associated emissions move overseas.
That distinction matters for policymakers claiming economic decoupling. Territorial statistics measure emissions produced within the UK, while consumption-based accounts also incorporate carbon embedded in imports.
Overall, the global result suggests both a potential turning point and a warning. Clean technology appears increasingly capable of arresting emissions growth in large emerging economies, yet it is not displacing fossil energy quickly enough across the whole system. Record deployment and record emissions can coexist, but not indefinitely if climate targets are to remain credible.
