The Iran War Unexpectedly Drove Down Carbon Emissions This Year

 

The Iran War Unexpectedly Drove Down Carbon Emissions This Year

 

It’s the first drop in planet-warming pollution since the pandemic in 2020. But researchers cautioned that the decline could be short-lived.

Researchers believe the dip may be only temporary — if the war with Iran ends and the Strait of Hormuz reopens, oil and gas demand could easily bounce back.Credit...Reuters

By Brad Plumer

Reporting from Washington

Nov. 9, 2026

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/09/climate/global-emissions-iran-war.html

 

Global fossil fuel emissions are on track to fall slightly in 2026, as disruptions caused by the U.S. war with Iran forced many countries to cut back on their use of oil and gas, researchers said on Monday.

Nations are projected to emit roughly 38.2 billion tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide by burning oil, gas and coal for energy this year, according to data from the Global Carbon Project. Those sources are the largest contributors to global warming. That’s roughly 0.4 percent less than in 2025.

The dip was driven partly by fighting in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, as well as by the war between Russia and Ukraine. Both conflicts have caused global prices for crude oil, natural gas, gasoline and diesel to soar, and many nations have responded by using less oil and gas and shifting to domestic alternatives, including coal or renewable energy.

Globally, emissions from oil consumption are expected to drop nearly 2 percent this year, while emissions from natural gas will decline roughly 0.3 percent. By contrast, carbon dioxide emissions from burning of coal are expected to rise roughly 0.6 percent, thanks to increased consumption in places like China and India. (Even though coal pollutes more than oil or gas, the uptick in coal consumption was smaller in comparison.)

The drop surprised analysts, who had been anticipating before the war that emissions would rise slightly this year.

“I would call it unexpected,” said Glen Peters, a senior researcher at the CICERO Center for International Climate Research in Oslo and one of the authors of the report. “It’s pretty rare to see a drop in oil demand this big.”

The findings arrived on the first day of this year’s United Nations climate summit in Antalya, Turkey. World leaders have pledged to stop the planet from warming, which would require global emissions to peak and then decline to zero.

So far, countries are not on course to meet that goal. This year’s emissions decline is the first since the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, and researchers say it may be only temporary. If the war with Iran ends and the Strait of Hormuz reopens, oil and gas demand could easily bounce back.

“A drop in emissions in one year is not a peak unless it is driven by structural change,” Dr. Peters said.

 

More than 40 countries, including the United States and many European nations, have managed to push emissions down over the past decade by switching from coal to less-polluting gas and adopting cleaner technologies like wind and solar power and electric vehicles. But fossil fuel use in other countries has kept rising.

A relatively small number of countries account for most of the world’s carbon dioxide output, with China responsible for 32 percent, the United States at 13 percent, India at 8 percent and the European Union at 6 percent.

In the United States, emissions are expected to fall by roughly 1.3 percent this year. Coal-burning ticked up in 2025 thanks to a cold winter and elevated natural gas prices, but that largely reversed this year. Wind and solar power have also continued to grow rapidly. While President Trump has tried to slow those technologies and has promoted fossil fuels instead, those changes will take time to have an effect.

One of the most startling findings is that China’s emissions have been flattening out recently after decades of rapid growth, although experts are still debating whether the trend will persist.

This year, China’s emissions are projected to fall roughly 1 percent thanks to a significant drop in oil consumption. China now has nearly as many electric cars as the rest of the world combined, which has blunted its appetite for gasoline. The country is also building more wind, solar and nuclear power than anywhere else, and growth in those low-emissions sources covered much of this year’s increase in electricity demand.

Still, China’s economy has been in a relative slump the past few years. Researchers have sometimes been fooled by past temporary slowdowns in the country’s emissions that disappeared once economic activity picked back up.

“There are good reasons to think this time is different, but it is still too early to say whether Chinese CO2 emissions have finally peaked,” said Jan Ivar Korsbakken, a senior researcher at CICERO.

In Europe, which has some of the world’s strictest climate policies, emissions are expected to fall 1.5 percent as renewable energy expanded.

In some countries, other factors can have an even bigger effect than policies or technology. In India, emissions are expected to rise roughly 4 percent this year thanks to a large increase in burning of coal. Researchers attributed that to the weather: A relatively dry monsoon season meant hotter weather and more demand for air-conditioning.

In the rest of the world, emissions fell roughly 0.7 percent, driven by a decline in oil use. International air travel also fell significantly as a result of higher jet fuel prices, although the researchers said that could prove temporary.