India’s fossil CO2 emissions are projected to climb 4.4% in 2026, the fastest change among the large emitters in the new Global Carbon Budget. China’s fall 0.9% and the United States’ fall 1.3%. The estimates come from the Global Carbon Project’s yearly accounting, published with a University of Exeter-led team.
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Taken at face value, the numbers describe a world where the biggest growth and the biggest cuts are happening in different places.
The country-by-country 2026 projections
The Exeter release lists the projected 2026 changes in fossil CO2: India +4.4%, China -0.9%, the United States -1.3%, the European Union -1.5%, Japan -1%, and the rest of the world -0.7%. China still produces 32% of global fossil emissions, so a 0.9% fall there carries more weight in tonnes than a larger percentage move in a smaller emitter. India’s increase is the only positive entry among the named economies.
Those regional lines sit inside a global projection of 38.2 billion tonnes, down 0.4%. The carbon-budget team gives the range around the world total as -1.5% to +0.6%, in its journal preprint, which means country estimates carry sizeable uncertainty of their own. Ordered from most negative to most positive, the table runs EU, United States, Japan, China, rest of world, then India.
The preprint behind the release has not finished review: it is posted as a discussion paper on the journal’s site, with a final version expected after reviewers weigh in. Country figures at this stage rest on energy statistics for the first part of the year and projections for the rest, so a four-point swing in India’s estimate between preprint and final would not be unusual in an accounting of this kind, though no such revision is signaled.
Why India stands apart in the accounting
The release does not break India’s rise down by sector, so the cause cannot be read from it. The global fuel picture offers context: coal emissions are projected up 0.6% worldwide while oil falls 1.9% and gas 0.3%. A country that is adding power demand and relies heavily on coal would be pulled toward the rising end of that spread, but the document stops short of saying so for India specifically. Even so, 4.4% is a large number for a country already among the top few emitters, and it is the only entry in the regional table that points upward.
Percentages hide scale. China’s 32% share of the world total means its 0.9% fall equals about 0.29% of global emissions, which on its own accounts for most of the 0.4% net decline. The release gives no share for India, so an equivalent calculation for the 4.4% rise cannot be made from the published text.
Globally, the project credits the Iran-linked oil and gas price spike for much of the dip, with renewables and EV sales adding to it. India’s number runs against that pattern, which is why its trajectory draws attention from the project’s reviewers. Energy-shock effects fall unevenly across countries depending on which fuels they import and how exposed their economies are to price spikes, one plausible reason a single shock could depress emissions in some regions and not others; the release offers no country-level explanation.
China’s 32% share and the American decline
China’s projected 0.9% fall matters because of scale: with 32% of global fossil emissions, a small percentage change moves the world total more than a double-digit change in a small economy. The United States’ 1.3% decline is larger in percentage terms, though from a smaller base. Europe’s 1.5% projected fall is the steepest of the named regions.
Europe and Japan fall by 1.5% and 1%, and the rest of the world, a large basket of countries outside the named economies, falls 0.7%. Set against those, India’s rise partly offsets the other declines in the global sum, which is how a 0.4% net decrease results from so many regional decreases plus one sizeable increase.
The Global Carbon Project’s public summary and the underlying data at the 2026 data DOI carry the full regional tables. Lead author Pierre Friedlingstein, who directs the Exeter-based analysis, points toward faster deployment of clean energy technologies as the durable route to lower emissions. The discussion paper is registered at its own DOI, and it reports 2025 global fossil emissions up 1.2%, the baseline against which each 2026 change is measured. The project also provides the underlying tables for anyone wanting to check which tonnes sit behind each percentage.
What the next edition shows for India is the figure to watch. A second year of growth near 4% would make that country’s line the dominant swing factor in whether the global total keeps its 2026 dip. The remaining carbon budget for 1.5C, about 150 billion tonnes according to the release, is under four years of emissions at the current rate, so every upward line in the table shortens that window. In percentage terms India’s rise is roughly five times the size of China’s decline.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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