Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels and cement will rise around 0.8% in 2024, reaching a record 37.4bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2), according to the 2024 Global Carbon Budget report by the Global Carbon Project.
This is 0.4GtCO2 higher than the previous record, set in 2023.
Total CO2 emissions – including both fossil and land-use emissions – will also set a new record at 41.6GtCO2, reflecting a growth of 2% over 2023 levels.
This is due, in part, to higher than usual land-use emissions driven by extreme wildfire activity in South America.
Despite the increase in 2024, total CO2 emissions have largely plateaued over the past decade, a sign that the world is making some modest progress tackling emissions.
But a flattening of emissions is far from what is needed to bring global emissions down to zero and stabilise global temperatures in-line with Paris Agreement goals.
The 19th edition of the Global Carbon Budget, which is published today, also reveals:
- Emissions emissions are projected to decrease significantly in the EU (down 3.8%) and slightly in the US (down 0.6%) in 2024. They are expected to increase slightly in China (up 0.2%), and increase significantly in India (up 4.6%) and the rest of the world (up 1.6%, including international shipping and aviation).
- Global emissions from coal increased by 0.2% in 2024 compared to 2023, while oil emissions increased 0.9% and gas emissions increased by 2.4%. Emissions from cement and other sources fell by 2.8%.
- Global land-use emissions clocked in at 4.2GtCO2 in 2024. This represents a 0.5GtCO2 increase over 2023 and was primarily driven by wildfire emissions linked to deforestation and forest degradation in South America. Overall, land-use emissions have decreased by around 28% since their peak in the late-1990s, with a particularly large drop in the past decade.
- While the land sink was quite weak in 2023 – leading to speculation that it may be on a path toward collapse – it appears to have largely recovered back to close to its average for the past decade.
- If global emissions remain at current levels, the remaining carbon budget to limit warming to 1.5C (with a 50% chance) will be exhausted in the next six years. Carbon budgets to limit warming to 1.7C and 2C would similarly be used up in 15 and 27 years, respectively.
- The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is set to reach 422.5 parts per million (ppm) in 2024, 2.8ppm above 2023 and 52% above pre-industrial levels.
Both global fossil and total CO2 emissions at record levels
The 2024 Global Carbon Budget finds that CO2 emissions from fossil use are projected to rise 0.8% in 2024, reaching a record 37.4GtCO2 – 0.4GtCO2 higher than the previous record, set last year.
Total CO2 emissions, which include land-use change, are also expected to reach record highs at 41.6GtCO2, or 2.0% above the previous record set in 2023.
This large increase was driven both by consistent growth in fossil-fuel emissions and abnormally high land-use emissions in 2024 – due in part to wildfires in South America exacerbated by a strong El Niño event and high temperatures.
Each year the Global Carbon Budget is updated to include the latest data as well as improvements to modelling sources and sinks, resulting in some year-to-year revisions to the historical record.
The figure below shows the 2024 global CO2 emissions update (dark blue solid line) alongside 2023 (grey dotted) 2022 (yellow dotted), 2021 (bright blue dotted) and 2020 (red dotted). The shaded area indicates the uncertainty around the new 2024 budget.
The 2024 figures are generally quite similar to those in the 2023 Global Carbon Budget, though they show somewhat higher emissions prior to 1980 and slightly lower emissions over the past seven years. Revisions to the data mean that 2023 is no longer a hair below 2019 levels, as was reported by Carbon Brief last year, but rather exceeds them by nearly 0.5GtCO2.
Annual total global CO2 emissions – from fossil and land-use change – between 1959 and 2024 for the 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 versions of the Global Carbon Project’s Global Carbon Budget, in billions of tonnes of CO2 per year (GtCO2). Shaded area shows the estimated one-sigma uncertainty for the 2024 budget. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
Total global CO2 emissions have notably plateaued in the past decade (2015-24), growing at only 0.2% per year compared to the 1.9% rate of growth over the previous decade (2005-214) and the longer-term average growth rate of 1.7% between 1959 and 2014.
This apparent flattening is due to declining land-use emissions compensating for continued increases in fossil CO2 emissions. Fossil emissions grew around 0.2GtCO2 per year over the past decade, while land-use emissions decreased by a comparable amount.
However, despite the emissions plateau, there is still no sign of the rapid and deep decrease in CO2 emissions needed to reach net-zero and stabilise global temperatures in-line with Paris Agreement goals.
If global emissions remain at current levels, the remaining carbon budget to limit warming to 1.5C (with a 50% chance) will be exhausted in the next six years. Carbon budgets to limit warming to 1.7C and 2C would similarly be used up in 15 and 27 years, respectively.
Global fossil CO2 emissions also grew more slowly in the past decade (0.7% per year) compared to the previous decade (2.1%). This was driven by the continued decarbonisation of energy systems – including a shift from burning coal to gas and replacing fossil fuels with renewables – as well as slightly weaker global economic growth during the past decade.
The figure below breaks down global emissions (dark blue line) in the 2024 budget into fossil (mid blue) and land-use (light blue) components. Fossil CO2 emissions represent the bulk of total global emissions in recent years, accounting for approximately 90% of emissions in 2024 (compared to 10% for land use). This represents a large change from the first half of the 20th century, when land-use emissions were approximately the same as fossil emissions.
Global fossil emissions include CO2 emitted from burning coal, oil and gas, as well as the production of cement. However, the Global Carbon Budget also subtracts the cement carbonation sink – CO2 slowly absorbed by cement once it is exposed to the air – from fossil emissions in each year to determine total fossil emissions.
Global CO2 emissions separated out into fossil and land-use change components between 1959 and 2024 from the 2024 Global Carbon Budget. Note that fossil CO2 emissions are inclusive of the cement carbonation sink. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
Global emissions can also be expressed on a per-capita basis, as shown in the figure below. While it is ultimately total global emissions that matter for the Earth’s climate – and a global per-capita figure glosses over a lot of variation among and within countries it is noteworthy that global per-capita emissions peaked in 2012 and have been slightly declining in the years since.
Global per-capita CO2 emissions between 1959 and 2024. Note that fossil CO2 emissions are inclusive of the cement carbonation sink. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
Land-use emissions trending downward
Global land-use emissions stem from deforestation, degradation, loss of peatlands and harvesting trees for wood. They averaged 4GtCO2 over the past decade (2015-24) and the Global Carbon Budget provides an initial projection for 2024 of 4.2GtCO2.
This represents a 0.5GtCO2 increase over land-use emissions in 2023. This was primarily driven by wildfire emissions linked to deforestation and forest degradation in South America. Drought conditions associated with this year’s El Niño event contributed to the severity of the fires.
Overall, land-use emissions have decreased by around 28% since their peak in the late-1990s, with a particularly large drop in the past decade.
This decline is statistically significant and is due both to decreasing deforestation and increasing levels of reforestation and afforestation globally (though rates of reforestation and afforestation have largely stagnated over the past decade).
This year’s Global Carbon Budget features a number of important improvements to land-use change emissions estimates, including updated estimates of cropland and pasture area in major countries.
Four countries – Brazil, Indonesia, China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – collectively contribute approximately 60% of the global land-use emissions.
The figure below shows changes in emissions over time in these countries, as well as land-use emissions in the rest of the world (grey). Note that Chinese land-use emissions are negative in recent years.
Annual CO2 emissions from land-use change by major emitting countries and the rest of world over 1959-2023. Note that country-level land-use change emissions are not yet available for 2024. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
Fossil CO2 in major emitting countries
Global emissions of fossil CO2 – including coal, oil, gas and cement – increased by around 0.8% in 2024, relative to 2023, with an uncertainty range of -0.3% to 1.9%. This represents a new record high and is 2.6% above the 2019 pre-Covid levels.
The figure below shows global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, divided into emissions from major emitting countries including China (dark blue shading), India (mid blue), the US (light blue), EU (pale blue) and the remainder of the world (grey).
Annual fossil CO2 emissions by major countries and the rest of the world over 1959-2024, excluding the cement carbonation sink as national-level values are not available. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
For this year, China represents 32% of global CO2 emissions. Their emissions in 2024 are projected to increase by a relatively small 0.2% (with an uncertainty range of -1.6% to +2%), driven by a small rise in emissions from coal (0.3%) and a large rise in natural gas emissions (8%). Emissions from oil are expected to decrease modestly (-0.8%), while emissions from cement are expected to fall sharply (-8.1%).
The Global Carbon Budget report suggests that Chinese oil emissions have probably already peaked, reflecting the acceleration of vehicle electrification.
India represents 8% of global emissions. In 2024, Indian emissions are projected to increase by 4.6% (with a range from 3.0% to 6.1%), with a 4.5% increase in emissions from coal, a 3.6% increase in emissions from oil, a 11.8% increase in emissions from natural gas and a 4% increase in emissions from cement.
While renewable energy is expanding quickly in India, it remains far slower than the rate of power demand growth as the economy rapidly expands.
The US represents 13% of global emissions this year – though is responsible for a much larger portion of historical emissions and associated atmospheric accumulation of CO2.
US emissions are projected to decrease by 0.6% in 2024 (ranging from -2.9% to +1.7%). This is being driven by a modest decrease in coal emissions (falling 3.5%). Oil emissions are expected to decline by a slight 0.7%, reflecting the rise of electric vehicles, while emissions from gas are expected to increase by 1%.
The EU represents 7% of global emissions. EU emissions are expected to decrease by 3.8% in 2024, driven by a 15.8% decline in coal emissions, a 1.3% decline in natural gas emissions, and a 3.5% decline in cement emissions. EU oil emissions are expected to increase slightly, by 0.2%.
The EU’s overall emissions decline is being driven by a combination of rapid clean energy adoption as well as relatively weak economic growth and high energy prices.
International aviation and shipping (included in the “rest of world” in the figure above) are responsible for 3% of global emissions. They are projected to increase by
7.8% in 2024, but remain below their 2019 pre-pandemic level by 3.5%.
The rest of the world (excluding aviation) represents 38% of global emissions. Emissions are expected to grow by 1.1% in 2024 (ranging from -1.0% to +3.3%), with increases in emissions from coal (0.5%), oil (0.5%), natural gas (2.2%) and cement (2%).
Overall, emissions are projected to decrease in the EU and US in 2024, increase slightly in China, and increase significantly in India and the rest of the world.
The total emissions for each year between 2021 and 2024, as well as the countries and regions that were responsible for the changes in absolute emissions, are shown in the figure below.
Annual emissions for 2021, 2022, 2023 and estimates for 2024 are shown by the navy blue bars. The smaller bars show the change in emissions between each set of years, broken down by country or region – the US (dark blue), EU (mid blue), China (light blue), India (pale blue) and the rest of the world (grey). Negative values show reductions in emissions, while positive values reflect emission increases.
Annual global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels (navy blue bars) and drivers of changes between years by country (smaller bars), excluding the cement carbonation sink as national-level values are not available. Negative values indicate reductions in emissions. Note that the y-axis does not start at zero. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
The Global Carbon Project notes that emissions have declined over the past decade (2014-23) in 22 nations – up from 18 countries during the decade prior to that (2004-13). This decrease comes despite continued domestic economic growth and represents a long-term decoupling of CO2 emissions and the economy.
CO2 emissions decreased in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries by 1.4% per year over the past decade, compared to a decrease of 0.9% per year in the decade prior. Non-OECD countries saw their emissions grow more slowly (1.8%) over the last decade than the prior one (4.9%).
Growth in emissions from coal, oil, and gas
Global fossil-fuel emissions primarily result from the combustion of coal, oil and natural gas. Coal is responsible for more emissions than any other fossil fuel, representing approximately 41% of global fossil CO2 emissions in 2024. Oil is the second largest contributor at 33% of fossil CO2, while gas rounds out the pack at 22%.
These percentages reflect both the amount of each fossil fuel consumed globally, but also differences in CO2 intensities. Coal results in the most CO2 emitted per unit of heat or energy produced, followed by oil and natural gas.
The figure below shows global CO2 emissions from different fuels over time, covering coal (dark blue shading), oil (mid blue) and gas (light blue), as well as cement production (pale blue) and other sources (grey).
While coal emissions increased rapidly in the mid-2000s, it has largely plateaued since 2013. However, coal use increased significantly in 2021 and then slightly in the subsequent three years.
Annual CO2 emissions by fossil fuel over 1959-2024, excluding the cement carbonation sink. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
Global emissions from coal increased by 0.2% in 2024 compared to 2023, while oil emissions increased 0.9% and gas emissions increased by 2.4%. Emissions from cement and other sources fell by 3%.
Despite setting a new record this year, global coal use is only 3% above 2013 levels – a full 12 years ago. By contrast, during the 2000s, global coal use grew at a rate of around 4% every single year.
The total emissions for each year between 2021 and 2024 (navy blue bars), as well as the absolute change in emissions for each fuel between years, are shown in the figure below.
Annual global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels (navy blue bars) and drivers of changes between years by fuel, excluding the cement carbonation sink. Negative values indicate reductions in emissions. Note that the y-axis does not start at zero. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
Even though they have been increasing over the past four years, global CO2 emissions from oil remain very slightly (0.8%) below the pre-pandemic highs of 2019.
The global carbon budget
Every year, the Global Carbon Project provides an estimate of the overall “global carbon budget”. This is based on estimates of the release of CO2 through human activity and its uptake by the oceans and land, with the remainder adding to atmospheric concentrations of the gas.
(This differs from the commonly used term “remaining carbon budget”, which refers to the amount of CO2 that can be released while keeping warming below global limits of 1.5 or 2C.)
The most recent budget, including estimated values for 2024, is shown in the figure below. Values above zero represent sources of CO2 – from fossil fuels and industry (dark blue shading) and land use (mid blue) – while values below zero represent “carbon sinks” that remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Any CO2 emissions that are not absorbed by the oceans (light grey) or land vegetation (mid grey) accumulate in the atmosphere (dark grey).
Annual global carbon budget of sources and sinks over 1959-2024. Fossil CO2 emissions include the cement carbonation sink. Note that the budget does not fully balance every year due to remaining uncertainties, particularly in sinks. Data from the Global Carbon Project; chart by Carbon Brief.
Over the past decade (2015-24), the world’s oceans have taken up approximately 26.5% of total human emissions, or around 10.6GtCO2 per year. The ocean CO2 sink has been relatively flat since 2016 after growing rapidly over the prior decades, reflecting the plateauing of global emissions during that period.
The land sink takes up around 29% of global emissions, or 11.5GtCO2 per year on average. While the land sink was quite weak in 2023 – leading some to speculate that it may be on a path toward collapse – it appears to have largely recovered back to close to its average level over the past decade in 2024 as El Niño conditions have faded.
Global CO2 emissions from fires were quite high in 2024, around 7GtCO2 over the first 10 months of the year and similar to the above average values in 2023.
This was driven by large emissions in North and South America, particularly in Canada and Brazil. (It is not possible to make a direct comparison between reported fire CO2 emissions and other components of the global carbon budget as they already show up in both parts of the land sink and land-use emissions.)
Overall, the impact of the ongoing emissions from human activity is that atmospheric CO2 continues to increase.
The growth rate of atmospheric CO2 in 2024 is expected to be around 2.76ppm, which is above average compared to the rate of 2.46% over the past decade (2014-23).
The 2024 rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration was the fifth largest over the 1959-2024 period, closely following 2023, 2015, 2016 and 1998 – most of which were strong El Niño years.
Atmospheric CO2 concentrations are set to reach an annual average of 422.5ppm in 2024, representing an increase of 52% above pre-industrial levels of 280ppm.
The post Analysis: Global CO2 emissions will reach new high in 2024 despite slower growth appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Global CO2 emissions will reach new high in 2024 despite slower growth
Ten years ago, switching from burning coal to gas was a key element of China’s policy to reduce severe air pollution.
However, while gas is seen in some countries as a “bridging” fuel to move away from coal use, rapid electrification, uncompetitiveness and supply concerns have suppressed its share in China’s energy mix.
As such, while China’s gas demand has more than doubled over the past decade, the fuel is not currently playing a decisive role in the country’s strategy to tackle climate change.
Instead, renewables are now the leading replacement for coal demand in China, with growth in solar and wind generation largely keeping emissions growth from China’s power sector flat.
While gas could play a role in decarbonising some aspects of China’s energy demand – particularly in terms of meeting power demand peaks and fuelling heavy industry – multiple factors would need to change to make it a more attractive alternative.
Small, but impactful
The share of gas in China’s primary energy demand is small and has remained relatively unchanged at around 8-9% over the past five years.
It also comprises 7% of China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fuel combustion, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Gas combustion in China added 755m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) into the atmosphere in 2023 – double the total amount of CO2 emitted by the UK.
However, its emissions profile in China lags well behind that of coal, which represented 79% of China’s fuel-linked CO2 emissions and was responsible for almost 9bn tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2023, according to the same IEA data.
Gas consumption continues to grow in line with an overall uptick in total energy demand. Chinese gas demand, driven by industry use, grew by around 7-8% year-on-year in 2024, according to different estimates.
This rapid growth is, nevertheless, slightly below the 9% average annual rise in China’s gas demand over the past decade, during which consumption has more than doubled overall, as shown in the figure below.
The state-run oil and gas company China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) forecast in 2025 that demand growth for the year may slow further to just over 6%.
The majority of China’s gas demand in 2023 was met by domestic gas supply, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).
Most of this supply comes from conventional gas sources. But incremental Chinese domestic gas supply in recent years has come from harder-to-extract unconventional sources, including shale gas, which accounted for as much as 45% of gas production in 2024.
Despite China’s large recoverable shale-gas resources and subsidies to encourage production, geographical and technical limitations have capped production levels relative to the US, which is the world’s largest gas producer by far.
CNPC estimates Chinese gas output will grow by just 4% in 2025, compared with 6% growth in 2024. Nevertheless, output is still expected to exceed the 230bn cubic metre national target for 2025.
Liquified natural gas (LNG) is China’s second most-common source of gas, imported via giant super-cooled tankers from countries including Australia, Qatar, Malaysia and Russia.
This is followed by pipeline imports – which are seen as cheaper, but less reliable – from Russia and central Asia.
One particularly high-profile pipeline project is the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline project. However, Beijing has yet to explicitly agree to investing in or purchasing the gas delivered by the project. Disagreements around pricing and logistics have hindered progress.
Evolving role
Beijing initially aimed for gas to displace coal as part of a broader policy to tackle air pollution.
A three-year action plan from 2018-2020, dubbed the “blue-sky campaign”, helped to accelerate gas use in the industrial and residential sectors, as gas displaced consumption of “dispersed coal” (散煤)”– referring to improperly processed coal that emits more pollutants.
Meanwhile, several cities across northern and central China were also mandated to curtail coal usage and switch to gas instead. Many of these cities were based in provinces with a strong coal mining economy or higher winter heating demand.
China’s pollution levels saw “drastic improvement” as a result, according to a report by research institute the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).
(In January 2026, there were widespread media reports of households choosing not to use gas heating despite freezing temperatures, as a result of high prices following the expiry of subsidies for gas use.)
Industry remains the largest gas user in China, with “city gas” – gas delivered by pipeline to urban areas – trailing in second, as shown in the figure below. Power generation is a distant third.
Gas has never gained momentum in China’s power sector, with its share of power generation remaining at 4% while wind and solar power’s share has soared from 4% to 22% over the past decade, Yu Aiqun, a research analyst at the US-based thinktank Global Energy Monitor, tells Carbon Brief.
Yu adds that this stagnation is largely due to insufficient and unreliable gas supply, which drives up prices and makes gas less competitive compared to coal and renewables. She says:
“With the rapid expansion of renewables and ongoing geopolitical uncertainties, I don’t foresee a bright future for gas power.”
Average on-grid gas-fired power prices of 0.56-0.58 yuan per kilowatt hour (yuan/kWh) in China are far higher than that of around 0.3-0.4 yuan/kWh for coal power, according to some industry estimates. Recent auction prices for renewables are even cheaper than this.
Meanwhile, the share of renewables in China’s power capacity stood at 55% in 2024, compared with gas at around 4%.
Generation from wind and solar in particular has increased by more than 1,250 terawatt-hours (TWh) in China since 2015, while gas-fired generation has increased by just 140TWh, according to IEEFA.
As the share of coal has shrunk from 70% to 61% during this period, IEEFA suggests that renewables – rather than gas – are displacing coal’s share in the generation mix.
However, China’s gas capacity may still rise from approximately 150 gigawatts (GW) in 2025 to 200GW by 2030, Bloomberg reports.
A report by the National Energy Administration (NEA) on development of the sector notes that gas will continue to play a “critical role” in “peak shaving”, where gas turbines can be used for short periods to meet daily spikes in demand. As such, the NEA says gas will be an “important pillar” in China’s energy transition.
In 2024, a new policy on gas utilisation also “explicitly promoted” the use of gas peak-shaving power plants, according to industry outlet MySteel.
China’s current gas storage capacity is “insufficient”, according to CNPC, reducing its ability to meet peak-shaving demand. The country built 38 underground gas storage sites with peak-shaving capacity of 26.7bn cubic metres in 2024, but this accounts for just 6% of its annual gas demand.
Transport use
Gas is instead playing a bigger part in the displacement of diesel in the transport sector, due to the higher cost competitiveness of LNG as a fuel – particularly in the trucking sector.
CNPC expects that LNG displaced around 28-30m tonnes of diesel in the trucking sector in 2025, accounting for 15% of total diesel demand in China.
This is further aided by policy support from Beijing’s equipment trade-in programme, part of efforts to stimulate the economy.
However, gas is not necessarily a better option for heavy-duty, long-haul transportation, due to poorer fuel efficiency compared with electric vehicles (EVs).
In fact, “new-energy vehicles” (NEVs) – including hydrogen fuel-cell, pure-electric and hybrid-electric trucks – are displacing both LNG-fueled trucks and diesel heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs).
In the first half of 2025, battery-electric models accounted for 22% of all HDV sales, a year-on-year increase of 9%, while market share for LNG-fueled trucks fell from 30% in 2024 to 26%.
Gas can be cheaper than oil but is not competitive with EVs and – with the emergence of zero-emission fuels such as hydrogen and ammonia – gas may eventually lose even this niche market, says Yu.
Supply security
Chinese government officials frequently note that China is “rich in coal, poor in oil and short of gas” (“富煤贫油少气”). Concerns around import dependence have underpinned China’s focus on coal as a source of energy security.
However, Beijing increasingly sees electrification as a more strategic way to decarbonise its transport sector, according to some analysts.
“Overall, electrification is a clear energy security strategy to reduce exposure to global fossil fuel markets,” says Michal Meidan, head of the China energy research programme at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.
Chinese oil and gas production grew dramatically in the last few years under a seven-year action plan from 2019-25, as Beijing ordered its state oil firms to ramp up output to ensure energy security.
Despite this, gas import dependency still hovers at around 40% of demand. This, according to assessments in government documents, exposes the country to price shocks and geopolitical risks.
The graph below shows the share of domestically produced gas (dark blue), LNG imports (mid-blue) and pipeline imports (light blue), in China’s overall gas supply between 2017 and 2024.
“Gas use is unlikely to play a significant role in decarbonising the power system, but could be more significant in industrial decarbonisation,” Meidan tells Carbon Brief.
She estimates that if LNG prices fall to $6 per million British thermal units (btu), compared to an average of $11 in 2024-25, this could encourage fuel switching in the steel, chemical manufacturing, textiles, ceramics and food processing industries.
The chart below shows the year-on-year change in gas demand between 2001-2022.
Growth in gas demand has been decelerating in some industries in recent years, such as refining. But it also remains unclear if Beijing will adopt more aggressive policies favouring gas, Meidan adds.
A roadmap developed by the Energy Research Institute (ERI), a thinktank under the National Development and Reform Commission’s Academy of Macroeconomic Research, finds that gas only begins to play an equivalent or greater role in China’s energy mix than coal by 2050 at the earliest – 10 years ahead of China’s target for achieving carbon neutrality.
Both fossil fuels play a significantly smaller role than clean-energy sources at this point.
Wang Zhongying and Kaare Sandholt, both experts at the ERI, write in Carbon Brief:
“Gas does not play a significant role in the power sector in our scenarios, as solar and wind can provide cheaper electricity while existing coal power plants – together with scaled-up expansion of energy storage and demand-side response facilities – can provide sufficient flexibility and peak-load capacity.”
Ultimately, China’s push for gas will be contingent on its own development goals. Its next five-year plan, from 2026-2030, will build a framework for China’s shift to controlling absolute carbon emissions, rather than carbon intensity.
Recent recommendations by top Chinese policymakers on priorities for the next five-year plan did not explicitly mention gas. Instead, the government endorses “raising the level of electrification in end-use energy consumption” while also “promoting peaking of coal and oil consumption”.
The Chinese government feels that gas is “nice to have…if available and cost-competitive but is not the only avenue for China’s energy transition,” says Meidan.
The post Explainer: Why gas plays a minimal role in China’s climate strategy appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Explainer: Why gas plays a minimal role in China’s climate strategy
Every year, understanding of climate science grows stronger.
With each new research project and published paper, scientists learn more about how the Earth system responds to continuing greenhouse gas emissions.
But with many thousands of new studies on climate change being published every year, it can be hard to keep up with the latest developments.
Our annual “10 new insights in climate science” report offers a snapshot of key advances in the scientific understanding of the climate system.
Produced by a team of scientists from around the world, the report summarises influential, novel and policy-relevant climate research published over the previous 18 months.
The insights presented in the latest edition, published in the journal Global Sustainability, are as follows:
- Questions remain about the record warmth in 2023-24
- Unprecedented ocean surface warming and intensifying marine heatwaves are driving severe ecological losses
- The global land carbon sink is under strain
- Climate change and biodiversity loss amplify each other
- Climate change is accelerating groundwater depletion
- Climate change is driving an increase in dengue fever
- Climate change diminishes labour productivity
- Safe scale-up of carbon dioxide removal is needed
- Carbon credit markets come with serious integrity challenges
- Policy mixes outperform stand-alone measures in advancing emissions reductions
In this article, we unpack some of the key findings.
A strained climate system
The first three insights highlight how strains are growing across the climate system, from indications of an accelerating warming and record-breaking marine heatwaves, to faltering carbon sinks.
Between April 2023 and March 2024, global temperatures reached unprecedented levels – a surge that cannot be fully explained by the long-term warming trend and typical year-to-year fluctuations of the Earth’s climate. This suggests other factors are at play, such as declining sulphur emissions and shifting cloud cover.
(For more, Carbon Brief’s in-depth explainer of the drivers of recent exceptional warmth.)
Ocean heat uptake has climbed as well. This has intensified marine heatwaves, further stressing ecosystems and livelihoods that rely on fisheries and coastal resources.
The exceptional warming of the ocean has driven widespread impacts, including massive coral bleaching, fish and shellfish mortality and disruptions to marine food chains.
The map below illustrates some of the impacts of marine heatwaves from 2023-24, highlighting damage inflicted on coral reefs, fishing stocks and coastal communities.
Land “sinks” that absorb carbon – and buffer the emissions from human activity – are under increasing stress, too. Recent research shows a reduction in carbon stored in boreal forests and permafrost ecosystems.
The weakening carbon sinks means that more human-caused carbon emissions remain in the atmosphere, further driving up global temperatures and increasing the chances that warming will surpass the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C limit.
This links to the fourth insight, which shows how climate change and biodiversity loss can amplify each other by leading to a decrease in the accumulation of biomass and reduced carbon storage, creating a destabilising feedback loop that accelerates warming.
New evidence demonstrates that climate change could threaten more than 3-6 million species and, as a result, could undermine critical ecosystem functions.
For example, recent projections indicate that the loss of plant species could reduce carbon sequestration capacity in the range of 7-145bn tonnes of carbon over the coming decades. Similarly, studies show that, in tropical systems, the extinction of animals could reduce carbon storage capacity by up to 26%.
Human health and livelihoods
Growing pressure on the climate system is having cascading consequences for human societies and natural systems.
Our fifth insight highlights how groundwater supplies are increasingly at risk.
More than half the global population depends on groundwater – the second largest source of freshwater after polar ice – for survival.
But groundwater levels are in decline around the world. A 2025 Nature paper found that rapid groundwater declines, exceeding 50cm each year, have occurred in many regions in the 21st century, especially in arid areas dominated by cropland. The analysis also showed that groundwater losses accelerated over the past four decades in about 30% of regional aquifers.
Changes in rainfall patterns due to climate change, combined with increased irrigation demand for agriculture, are depleting groundwater reserves at alarming rates.
The figure below illustrates how climate-driven reductions in rainfall, combined with increased evapotranspiration, are projected to significantly reduce groundwater recharge in many arid regions – contributing to widespread groundwater-level declines.
These losses threaten food security, amplifying competition for scarce resources and undermining the resilience of entire communities.
Human health and livelihoods are also being affected by changes to the climate.
Our sixth insight spotlights the ongoing and projected expansion of the mosquito-borne disease dengue fever.
Dengue surged to the largest global outbreak on record in 2024, with the World Health Organization reporting 14.2m cases, which is an underestimate because not all cases are counted.
Rising temperatures are creating more favourable conditions for the mosquitoes that carry dengue, driving the disease’s spread and increasing its intensity.
The chart below shows the regions climatically suitable for Aedes albopictus (blue line) and Aedes aegypti (green line) – the primary mosquitoes species that carry the virus – increased by 46.3% and 10.7%, respectively, between 1951-60 and 2014-23.
The maps on the right reveal how dengue could spread by 2030 and 2050 under an emissions scenario broadly consistent with current climate policies. It shows that the climate suitable for the mosquito that spreads dengue could expand northwards in Canada, central Europe and the West Siberian Plain by 2050.
The ongoing proliferation of these mosquito species is particularly alarming given their ability to transmit the zika, chikungunya and yellow fever viruses.
Heat stress is also a growing threat to labour productivity and economic growth, which is the seventh insight in our list.
For example, an additional 1C of warming is projected to expose more than 800 million people in tropical regions to unsafe heat levels – potentially reducing working hours by up to 50%.
At 3C warming, sectors such as agriculture, where workers are outdoors and exposed to the sun, could see reductions in effective labour of 25-33% across Africa and Asia, according to a recent Nature Reviews Earth & Environment paper.
Meanwhile, sectors where workers operate in shaded or indoor settings could also face meaningful losses. This drain on productivity compounds socioeconomic issues and places a strain on households, businesses and governments.
Low-income, low-emitting regions are set to shoulder a greater relative share of the impacts of extreme heat on economic growth, exacerbating existing inequalities.
Action and policy
Our report illustrates not only the scale of the challenges facing humanity, but also some of the pathways toward solutions.
The eighth insight emphasises the critical role of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in stabilising the climate, especially in “overshoot” scenarios where warming temporarily surpasses 1.5C and is then brought back down.
Scaling these CDR solutions responsibly presents technical, ecological, justice, equity and governance challenges.
Nature-based approaches for pulling carbon out of the air – such as afforestation, peatland rewetting and agroforestry – could have negative consequences for food security, biodiversity conservation and resource provision if deployed at scale.
Yet, research has suggested that substantially more CDR may be needed than estimated in the scenarios used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC’s) last assessment report.
Recent findings showed that a pathway where temperatures remain below 1.5C with no overshoot would require up to 400Gt of cumulative CDR by 2100 in order to buffer against the effect of complex geophysical processes that can accelerate climate change. This figure is roughly twice the amount of CDR assessed by the IPCC.
This underscores the need for robust international coordination on the responsible scaling of CDR technologies, as a complement to ambitious efforts to reduce emissions. Transparent carbon accounting frameworks that include CDR will be required to align national pledges with international goals.
Similarly, voluntary carbon markets – where carbon “offsets” are traded by corporations, individuals and organisations that are under no legal obligation to make emission cuts – face challenges.
Our ninth insight shows how low-quality carbon credits have undermined the credibility of these largely unregulated carbon markets, limiting their effectiveness in supporting emission reductions.
However, emerging standards and integrity initiatives, such as governance and quality benchmarks developed by the Integrity Council for Voluntary Carbon Markets, could address some of the concerns and criticism associated with carbon credit projects.
High-quality carbon credits that are verified and rigorously monitored can complement direct emission reductions.
Finally, our 10th insight highlights how a mix of climate policies typically have greater success than standalone measures.
Research published in Science in 2024 shows how carefully tailored policy packages – including carbon pricing, regulations, and incentives – could consistently achieve larger and more durable emission reductions than isolated interventions.
For example, in the buildings sector, regulations that ban or phase out products or activities achieve an average effect size of 32% when included in a policy package, compared with 13% when implemented on their own.
Importantly, policy mixes that are tailored to the country context and with attention to distributional equity are more likely to gain public support.
These 10 insights in our latest edition highlight the urgent need for an integrated approach to tackling climate change.
The science is clear, the risks are escalating – but the tools to act are available.
The post Guest post: 10 key climate science ‘insights’ from 2025 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Choosing the “least expensive” healthy food options could cut dietary emissions by one-third, according to a new study.
In addition to the lower emissions, diets composed of low-cost, healthy foods would cost roughly one-third as much as a diet of the most-consumed foods in every country.
The study, published in Nature Food, compares prices and emissions associated with 440 local food products in 171 countries.
The researchers identify some food groups that are low in both cost and emissions, including legumes, nuts and seeds, as well as oils and fats.
Some of the most widely consumed foods – such as wheat, maize, white beans, apples, onions, carrots and small fish – also fall into this category, the study says.
One of the lead authors tells Carbon Brief that while food marketing has promoted the idea that eating environmentally friendly diets is “very fancy and expensive”, the study shows that such diets are achievable through cheap, everyday foods.
Meanwhile, a separate Nature Food study found that reforming the policies that reduce taxes on meat products in the EU could decrease food-related emissions by up to 5.7%.
Costs and emissions
The study defines a healthy diet using the “healthy diet basket” (HDB), which is a standard based on nutritional guidelines that includes a range of food groups with the needed nutrients to provide long-term health.
Using both data on locally available products and food-specific emissions databases, the authors estimate the costs and greenhouse gas emissions of 440 food products needed for healthy diets in 171 countries.
They examine three different healthy diets: one using the most-consumed food products, one using the least expensive food products and one using the lowest-emitting food products.
Each of these diets is constructed for each country, based on costs, emissions, availability and consumption patterns.
The researchers find that a healthy diet comprising the most-consumed foods within each country – such as beef, chicken, pork, milk, rice and tomatoes – emits an average of 2.44 kilograms of CO2-equivalent (kgCO2e) and costs $9.96 (£7.24) in 2021 prices, per person and per day.
However, they find that a healthy diet with the least-expensive locally available foods in each country – such as bananas, carrots, small fish, eggs, lentils, chicken and cassava – emits 1.65kgCO2e and costs $3.68 (£2.68). That is approximately one-third of the emissions and one-third of the cost of the most-consumed products diet.
In comparison, a healthy diet with the lowest-emissions products – such as oats, tuna, sardines and apples – would emit just 0.67kgCO2e, but would cost nearly double the least-expensive diet, at $6.95 (£5.05).
This reveals the tradeoffs of affordability and sustainability – and shows that the least-expensive foods tend to produce lower emissions, according to the study.
Dr Elena Martínez, a food-systems researcher at Tufts University and one of the lead authors of the study, tells Carbon Brief this is generally true because lower-cost food production tends to use fewer fossil fuels and require less land-use change, which also cuts emissions.
Ignacio Drake is coordinator of the fiscal and economic policies at Colansa, an organisation promoting healthy eating and sustainable food systems in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Drake, who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that the research is a “step further” than previous work on healthy diets. He adds that the study “integrates and consolidates” previous analyses done by other groups, such as the World Bank and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
Food group differences
The research looks at six food groups: animal-sourced foods, oils and fats, fruits, legumes (as well as nuts and seeds), vegetables and starchy staples.
Animal-sourced foods – such as meat and dairy – are typically the most-emitting, and most-expensive, food group.
Within this group, the study finds that beef has the highest costs and emissions, while small fish, such as sardines, have the lowest emissions. Milk and poultry are amongst the least-expensive products for a healthy diet.
Starchy staple products also contribute to high emissions too, adds the study, because they make up such a large portion of most people’s calories.
Emissions from fruits, vegetables, legumes and oil are lower than those from animal-derived foods.
The following chart shows the energy contributions (top) and related emissions (bottom) from six major food groups in the three diets modelled by the study: lowest-cost (left), lowest-emission (middle) and most-common (right) food items.
The six food groups examined in the study are shown in different colours: animal-sourced foods (red), legumes, nuts and seeds (blue), oils and fats (purple), vegetables (green), fruits (orange) and starchy staples (yellow). The size of each box represents the contribution of that food to the overall dietary energy (top) and greenhouse gas emissions (bottom) of each diet.
Prof William Masters, a professor at Tufts University and author on the study, tells Carbon Brief that balancing food groups is important for human health and the environment, but local context is also important. For example, he points out that in low-income countries, some people do not get enough animal-sourced foods.
For Drake, if there are foods with the same nutritional quality, but that are cheaper and produce fewer emissions, it is logical to think that the “cost-benefit ratio [of switching] is clear”.
Other studies and reports have also modelled healthy and sustainable diets and, although they do not exclude animal-sourced foods, they do limit their consumption.
A recent study estimated that a global food system transformation – including a diet known as the “planetary health diet”, based on cutting meat, dairy and sugar and increasing plant-based foods, along with other actions – can help limit global temperature rise to 1.85C by 2050.
The latest EAT-Lancet Commission report found that a global shift to healthier diets could cut non-CO2 emissions from agriculture, such as methane and nitrous oxide, by 15%. The report recommends increasing the production of fruit, vegetable and nuts by two-thirds, while reducing livestock meat production by one-third.
Dr Sonia Rodríguez, head of the department of food, culture and environment at Mexico’s National Institute of Public Health, says that unlike earlier studies, which project ideal scenarios, this new study also evaluates real scenarios and provides a “global view” of the costs and emissions of diets in various countries.
Increasing access
The study points out that as people’s incomes increase, their consumption of expensive foods also increases. However, it adds, some people with high income that can afford healthy diets often consume other types of foods, due to reasons such as preferences, time and cooking costs.
The study stresses that nearly one-third of the world’s population – about 2.6 billion people – cannot afford sufficient food products required for a healthy diet.
In low-income countries, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, 75% of the population cannot afford a healthy diet, says the study.
In middle-income countries, such as China, Brazil, Mexico and Russia, more than half of the population can afford such a diet.
To improve the consumption of healthy, sustainable and affordable foods, the authors recommend changes in food policy, increasing the availability of food at the local level and substituting highly emitting products.
Martínez also suggests implementing labelling systems with information on the environmental footprint and nutritional quality of foods. She adds:
“We need strategies beyond just reducing the cost of diets to get people to eat climate-friendly foods.”
Drake notes that there are public and financial policies that can help reduce the consumption of unhealthy and unsustainable foods, such as taxes on unhealthy foods and sugary drinks. This, he adds, would lead to better health outcomes for countries and free up public resources for implementing other policies, such as subsidies for producing healthy food.
Separately, another recent Nature Food study looks at taxes specifically on meat products, which are subject to reduced value-added tax (VAT) in 22 EU member states.
It finds that taxing meat at the standard VAT rate could decrease dietary-related greenhouse gases by 3.5-5.7%. Such a levy would also have positive outcomes for water and land use, as well as biodiversity loss, according to the study.
The post Adopting low-cost ‘healthy’ diets could cut food emissions by one-third appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Adopting low-cost ‘healthy’ diets could cut food emissions by one-third
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