Global carbon emissions are expected to show flat overall growth in 2025, with gains in fossil fuel pollution offset by declines in land use emissions, according to the latest Global Carbon Budget.

But while some indicators point to a possible emissions peak later this decade, uncertainty remains, researchers warn.

“We don’t [project] the global inflection point until around 2030, unfortunately, but it does look like emissions are flattening off,” Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare told Carbon Brief.

The latest Global Carbon Budget estimates that global carbon emissions from fossil fuels and cement will increase 1.1% to reach a record 38.1 billion tonnes this year.

When emissions and carbon sinks are assessed together, however, total emissions for 2025 are expected to reach 42.2 gigatons of carbon dioxide, about 0.04% lower than last year. That makes 2024 and 2025 “effectively tied” as the highest years on record.

Getting clear of the latest El Niño period strengthened global land carbon sinks in 2025 compared to the past few years—though other research indicates they were still about 15% weaker over the past decade than they would have been without climate impacts, suggesting that natural systems will be able to contribute only so much to offsetting emissions.

A Deforestation Dent

Progress on slowing deforestation and wildfires in South America is expected to drive a decline in land use emissions, but the permanent removal of forests sustains high emissions from land use change—especially from deforestation in Brazil, Indonesia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which together are responsible for around 57% of global land use emissions. The fourth- and fifth-ranking countries are Russia and Canada, which produce 7% and 2.5% of global land use emissions, respectively. Climate change impacts, especially in South Asia and parts of South America, have changed some tropical rainforests from carbon sinks to carbon sources.

The budget, which is published annually by the Global Carbon Project, has some climate experts cautiously suggesting that emissions might be heading for a decline towards the end of the decade, and some have argued that that decline is already taking place. But researchers are careful to emphasize significant uncertainty in the projections—annual variations in weather and energy consumption could push emission up or down, as could changes in progress on deforestation and other land use changes.

Glen Peters, a climate policy researcher at the Cicero Center for International Climate Research in Oslo who is involved in the Global Carbon Project, said a peak might end up looking like a series of rolling hills.

“I would want to see emissions going down for several years before I would stand up on a building top and shout that emissions have peaked,” Peters told the journal Nature.

Country-Level Shifts

Breaking global emissions down by country reveals that the slowing growth is strongly influenced by China, where emissions are set to grow below average for the second year running. (Given the current uncertainty of the results, the country may ultimately end up showing an overall decline when final numbers are reported.) China’s ambitious efforts to expand renewable energy generation and electric vehicle adoption have helped lower emissions. But Zhu Liu, an Earth systems scientist at Tsinghua University in Beijing, told Carbon Brief the biggest factor is reduced demand for cement and steel following the collapse of China’s real estate market.

India also showed much lower emissions growth than in previous years due to strong renewables growth and an early monsoon season, paired with heavy rains in May that cut cooling demand during the hottest months.

Emissions from the European Union rose due to increased gas demand during a cold February and weakening energy from hydropower and wind generation, reversing a trend towards declining emissions from recent years. But the EU’s increase was only 0.4%, and because the report’s uncertainty range centred around zero, researchers cautioned that “the increase should not be overinterpreted and will need to be confirmed when full-year data are available.”

Emissions rose at a faster rate in the United States, where high natural gas prices drove an increase in coal burning, and low temperatures early in the year raised heating needs. Carbon Brief reports that the policies of the Trump administration may drive larger emissions increases in the future, but they had a comparatively modest impact in 2025. Rising U.S. emissions over the past two years have contributed about 40% of the total global increase, more than the EU, China, and India combined.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are set to rise by 2.6 parts per million (ppm) in 2025 to reach 425.7 ppm, 53% above pre-industrial levels. The previous year saw a record 3.7 ppm rise, largely caused by El Niño’s influence on the land sink.