What happened

The Global Carbon Budget 2026, the yearly update from more than 140 scientists in the Global Carbon Project, was published on 10 November 2026 at COP31. Its press release projects global fossil carbon dioxide emissions of 38.2 billion tonnes this year, a fall of 0.4%. As Fiona Harvey reported for the Guardian, it is a slight fall, helped by the push for renewables after the Iran war.

The main figures for 2026 from the release:

  • Oil emissions down 1.9%, natural gas down 0.3%, coal up 0.6%. International aviation and shipping are both projected down 1%.
  • China down 0.9%, the USA down 1.3%, the European Union down 1.5%, Japan down 1%, India up 4.4% and the rest of the world down 0.7%.
  • Emissions from land-use change, such as deforestation and peat fires, rise to 5.1 billion tonnes, so total CO2 rises to 43.3 billion tonnes, from 42.8 billion tonnes in 2025.
  • CO2 in the atmosphere reaches 427.7 parts per million, 54% above pre-industrial levels.
  • The remaining carbon budget for 1.5 °C is 150 billion tonnes, which the report says is less than four years of emissions at the current rate.

The scientists are clear that one year's fall is not a peak. "A drop in emissions in one year is not a peak unless it is driven by structural change," said Glen Peters of the CICERO Center for International Climate Research. A companion paper in Nature Climate Change finds that solar, wind and electric vehicles will offset 64% to 79% of the emissions from new energy demand up to the end of 2028, and that 59 countries emitted less in 2025 than in 2019 while their economies grew.

What it means for your business

Nothing changes in what you report. A UK business reports its own Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions with the 2026 UK government conversion factors, whatever the global total does. But the Global Carbon Budget is the yardstick that national targets, science-based targets and COP31 negotiators work from, so it shapes what customers, lenders and tenders will ask of you.

The message is the same one the report gives countries: growth has to come from clean power. Global energy demand is still rising, and the reason fossil emissions fell is that two thirds of the rise is being met by solar, wind and electric vehicles. A business works the same way. Take one using 150,000 kWh of grid electricity a year, 19.64 tonnes CO2e on the 2026 factors. If it grows and uses 15,000 kWh more, that adds 1.96 tonnes. If two thirds of the extra (10,000 kWh) comes from its own rooftop solar, the rise is only 0.65 tonnes: the business has grown, but its footprint has grown by a third as much.

What to do now

  1. Track your own year-on-year change, not just the total. Like the global figures, a fall that comes from a quiet year is not the same as one that comes from a real change.
  2. Plan growth around clean energy. When you add a site, a shift or vehicles, price in solar, a renewable tariff or electric vehicles at the start, as in the example above.
  3. Follow COP31. Read our posts on the opening of COP31 and the WMO's State of the Climate update; we will report the outcome when it is agreed.