Reasons to be cheerful part 3: Are global carbon emissions peaking?

Depressed about the ever-worsening news on human impact on the climate? Sceptical about whether meaningful progress has yet been made in the transition from fossil fuels? When net zero scenarios were drawn up at the start of the decade they required steep downward trajectories in global emissions, with measurable progress by 2030 to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

So, what progress has been made on slashing emissions globally?

Anyone looking at the latest statistics on global efforts to generate less CO2, with the lion’s share of emissions coming from fossil fuel combustion for energy, may be impressed with what they find. Global carbon (CO2) emissions for 2024 increased by only 0.9% relative to 2023 (following increases of 0.1% and 1.9% in 2023 and 2022, respectively), reaching 36.3 Gt CO2.¹ As emissions in most large countries in the G20 have already peaked some years ago, 75% of the growth in emissions has originated in emerging markets over the past decade.² However, in several developing countries, including large economies like India and China, there has been rapid progress in the growth of renewables electricity capacity on a remarkable scale. For example, installed solar and wind power capacity in China climbed 45.2% and 18%, respectively in 2024, according to the National Energy Administration³ In the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Renewables 2024 report, the expected additions to capacity are impressive, as shown in the chart below.⁴ For context, 34% of China’s electricity was generated from renewable sources in 2024.⁵

From a policy perspective, over 100 countries signed up at COP28 to the global goal of tripling renewables capacity and doubling energy efficiency by 2030. According to Ember, a UK-based energy think tank, this could deliver 85% of the cuts in unabated fossil fuels required by the end of this decade. By 2035, this level of renewables growth and energy efficiency improvement has the potential capacity to more than halve global CO2 emissions. However, commitments need to be followed by actions. Ember reports that, a year on from COP28, solar is the only technology where industry forecasts align with a global tripling of renewables capacity, with wind and storage lagging targets.⁶

While COP29 made headlines for tripling climate finance pledges for developing countries, from $100 billion to $300 billion a year, national decarbonisation efforts will come back into sharper relief this year. In fact, 2025 is a crucial year for climate action, as countries are submitting their revised Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which will shape climate policy through the next decade. As of June 2025, only a small number of countries submitted their NDCs, with 90% having yet to do so.⁷

These milestones coincide with important setbacks in climate policy in the US that have the potential to derail global ambitions. In 2025, President Donald Trump signed executive orders to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement (again) and expedite fossil fuel projects, while cutting green subsidies via his ‘Big Beautiful Bill’.⁸ As energy demand rises, underpinned by expanding data centre demand and ironically, more cooling necessitated by a warming climate, the Trump administration has made no secret that fossil fuels production will be prioritised, as exemplified by the recent opening of the first new coal mine in Wyoming in decades.⁹

Nonetheless, cleaner energy sources still have a significant role to play in the US. For example, although tax credits for solar and wind have been repealed, other low-carbon options like nuclear and geothermal seem set to continue to receive support.¹⁰ Additionally, even on an unsubsidised basis, renewable energy remains the most cost-effective and quickest to deploy form of generation with, for instance, the levelised costs of energy for solar photovoltaic reducing 84% since 2009.¹¹ It is also worth mentioning that wind and solar produced a record 17% of the US’ electricity in 2024, overtaking coal generation, which is down over two-thirds since its peak in 2007.¹²

Against a backdrop of heightened policy volatility and an uncertain path for global climate action, some silver linings are emerging. 

Global per capita CO2 emissions from fossil fuels peaked in 2012, showing that lifestyles are decarbonising, albeit slowly.¹³ As falling fertility rates are expected to drive a marked shift in global demographic trends in the second half of the century, this is likely to help underpin more benign emission levels.¹⁴

Despite the policy shift in the US, going forward, global emissions will depend to a large extent on developments in China, which now accounts for a greater share of carbon emissions than the developed world combined.¹⁵ China is significantly off track in meeting its emission intensity reduction targets under both its 14th Five-Year Plan for 2025 and its 2030 NDC commitment under the Paris Agreement. Furthermore, a recent study by the University of California San Diego estimates that to meet global climate commitments, wind and solar would need to supply up to 56% of China’s electricity by 2035, up from just 18% in 2024.¹⁶

Nevertheless, Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific project tracking government climate action, projects that the country’s CO2 emissions are nearing their peak, with the caveat that the path ahead is uncertain and will hinge on the energy and emissions targets set in China’s upcoming NDC.¹⁷ Other analysts share a similar view: Lauri Myllyvirta, senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute and lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air updated his analysis for Carbon Brief in May 2025. He shows that China’s CO2 emissions have been stable, or falling, for more than a year, with emissions down 1.6% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025.¹⁸

In an article published recently in Nature, entitled Economic modelling fit for the demands of energy decision makers,¹⁹ Pete Barbrook Johnson and others observe a shift over the last 15 years in public policy. They describe a transition from debating about whether to act on climate change, to one about establishing efficient sector focused and economically beneficial energy transition policies.

The same shift has been occurring in industry over a similar time scale. Businesses traditionally considered climate change only within their corporate socially responsible schemes. Now they are also working to strategically position their businesses, either in response to public policy and regulatory initiatives or because it makes increasingly strategic and financial sense, as the energy transition to a low carbon economy reshapes markets and supply chains.

The scale of this structural shift is often unclear. The press seems more prone to report on the short-term setbacks in public policy, rather than acknowledging real change and progress made in decarbonisation and technological developments on the ground. While the transformation may initially have been motivated by the need to act on climate change, high energy prices and falling renewable energy costs, coupled with a focus on energy security and resilience, have accelerated it.

If you look back 20 or 30 years, our lives looked vastly different compared with the global proliferation of the mobile phone and the digital connectivity we have now come to rely on. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, our lives even look different compared to just five years ago, with changes made at the time still affecting how we live and work. As a society, we’ve proven time and again that we can adapt and innovate when we choose to.  

It looks like the push towards a rapid renewable energy transition with a corresponding reduction in carbon emissions may be bumpy, but the energy transition appears to have some underlying momentum. Based on the progress so far and direction of travel, there are encouraging signs that we may be approaching peak global carbon emissions.  

1. Nature.com; Global carbon emissions and decarbonization in 2024, 11 April 2025
2. BBC, 5 Takeaways from a dramatic COP29, 24 November, 2024
3. Enerdata, China installs record capacity for solar (+45%) and wind (+18%) in 2024, 22 January 2025
4. The International Energy Agency is an international energy forum comprising of 29 industrialised countries. Their remit includes energy analyses and data collection. IEA 2024; Renewables 2024; Renewables 2024 – Analysis - IEA; Licence: CC by 4.0
5. Ourworldindata.org, China Energy country Profile
6. Ember, Progress since COP 28 on transitioning away from fossil fuels, 20 November 2024
7. Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are at the heart of the Paris Agreement and the achievement of its long-term goals. The Paris Agreement (Article 4, paragraph 2) requires each Party to prepare, communicate and maintain successive nationally determined contributions (NDCs) that it intends to achieve. The Paris Agreement requests each country to outline and communicate their post-2020 climate actions every five years. Assessing New National Climate Commitments (NDCs) for 2025 | World Resources Institute; WRI.org, Are countries' new climate plans ambitious enough? 2 June 2025
8. Nature Portfolio, Reversing climate progress: consequences and solutions in the wake of US policy rollbacks, 2 July 2025
9. APNews.com, Wyoming's first new coal mine in decades to extract rare earths, 12 July  2025
10. Center on Global Energy Policy, Assessing the energy impacts of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, 14 July 2025
11. Lazard, Levelized cost of energy, 2025
12. Ember, Wind and solar overtake coal in historic US clean electricity landmark, 2025
13. Our World in Data, Per capita CO2 emissions have peaked globally, but total emissions are still increasing, 3 December 2024
14. Our World in Data, Peak global population and other key findings from the 2024 UN World population prospects, 11 July 2024
15. BBC, Report: China emissions exceed all developed nations combined, 7 May 2021
16. US San Diego Today, Clean power surge needed: China's 20235 climate plan must aim high, 15 May 2025
17. China Action Tracker
18. Carbon Brief, Analysis: Clean energy just put China's CO2 emissions into reverse for the first time, 15 May 2025
19. Nature Energy, Economic modelling fit for the demands of energy decision makers, 2 February 2024