Global Fossil Fuel Emissions May Dip in 2026 as Oil Prices Rise

A forecast decline with a large caveat

A projected drop in fossil fuel emissions this year points to how much the global energy transition still has to do. Wind, solar and electric vehicles are curbing emissions growth, but researchers say they haven’t yet pushed the total into a sustained decline. That distinction matters: slowing the rise is progress, but it doesn’t mean the underlying source of emissions has been brought under control.

Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are forecast to fall 0.4 percent in 2026, after rising by an average of 0.8 percent annually from 2019 through 2025. The decline is likely tied to high oil prices caused by the Iran war, according to research published November 9 in Nature Climate Change. Without that price shock, emissions probably would have risen again, says Glen Peters, a climate scientist at the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo.

That explanation makes the forecast less reassuring than the headline figure might suggest. A drop driven in part by expensive oil could reflect reduced fuel use under economic pressure, rather than a durable shift in how energy is produced and consumed. The study’s projection still points to a role for clean technologies, but it also shows how much the annual emissions total can depend on forces outside their growth.

“So the energy transition that’s happening … it’s not quite big enough to get emissions heading downward yet,” Peters says.

Clean energy is slowing growth

The researchers project that emissions will reach 38.24 gigatons by the end of 2026, about 0.16 gigatons below the 2025 total. That’s a modest change beside the nearly 2 gigatons of emissions avoided in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, or the roughly 0.5 gigatons avoided in 2009 during the global financial crisis. Those comparisons put the forecast in perspective: the expected dip is visible in the global total, but it’s small beside the disruptions associated with major economic shocks.

Those earlier reductions also came with circumstances that aren’t a model for a lasting transition. A crisis can temporarily suppress activity and fuel use; clean energy has to displace fossil fuels repeatedly, across many countries and uses, to make a decline persist. The forecast’s smaller movement therefore says less about whether emissions can fall in a single year than about whether the forces behind that fall can keep working afterward.

The team used country-level data on electric vehicle numbers and wind and solar generation to estimate how those technologies affect fossil fuel emissions through 2028. The analysis used the generative AI model Claude to gather data and write code. That method matters because country-level estimates can help connect technology deployment to emissions outcomes, while the use of an AI model makes the data and coding process part of how the researchers built their analysis.

The projection isn’t a direct count of every unit of fuel displaced by a particular vehicle or power installation. It’s an estimate of how the spread of these technologies relates to emissions across countries and over time. As with any forecast, its result depends on the assumptions and data used to construct it. The source describes the technologies and the time span, but it doesn’t provide enough detail here to assess the model’s full uncertainty.

If EV sales and wind and solar capacity keep growing at their 2026 rates, they could offset about 63 percent of emissions growth from 2025 to 2028, avoiding roughly 1.64 gigatons of additional emissions. Without those technologies, emissions would have climbed by an average of 1.9 percent a year from 2019 to 2025, the researchers estimate. The gap between those scenarios is substantial: clean energy doesn’t have to eliminate fossil fuel use to change the trajectory, but the estimate still leaves some projected growth unaddressed.

Here’s the thing: “avoided” emissions describe a difference from a projected alternative, not necessarily a fall in the amount already being emitted. If clean technologies prevent some additional fossil fuel use while other sources continue to grow, the total can still rise. That’s why the estimate of avoided emissions and the forecast of a small annual decline answer related, but distinct, questions.

A dip is not yet a turning point

The projection suggests that clean energy is already making a substantial difference, while also showing that current growth rates haven’t been enough to secure a lasting decline. Peters says it’s difficult to predict when emissions will peak. Still, he adds, “the fact that we’re talking about this means that we’re close to that point.”

This is more significant than it looks, but the significance is qualified. A near-term dip would be consistent with a transition that’s beginning to constrain fossil fuel emissions; it wouldn’t establish that the global peak has arrived or that future totals will keep falling. The forecast itself points to that tension: technology growth is offsetting a large share of expected emissions growth, yet the researchers’ scenario still describes avoided additions rather than a guaranteed long-term downward path.

And yet, the contrast with the alternative scenario gives the clean energy figures real weight. Without EVs, wind and solar, the researchers estimate that emissions growth would have been much faster over the earlier period they examined. The transition is changing the scale of the problem. It hasn’t, on these estimates, changed the direction decisively enough.

If you’re working in this space, the question to watch is whether growth in these technologies continues to translate into lower fossil fuel emissions as the effects of oil prices shift. The study’s projection extends through 2028 for its technology analysis, but the figures depend on sales and capacity continuing at their 2026 rates. A different pace would change the estimated amount of emissions avoided.

(And this is the part most people overlook.) An emissions peak is a turning point in the total, not a finish line. Even if the total begins to decline, the speed and persistence of that decline will determine how much the transition changes the longer-term trajectory. The forecast doesn’t settle that question.

For now, the evidence presented here supports a cautious reading: clean energy is suppressing emissions growth, and a small decline is projected, but a sustained fall remains unproven. A narrow dip. The next test is whether the technologies can keep expanding and keep displacing fossil fuel use after the price shock has passed.