Report: This year, the increase in carbon emissions in India has been slow. Really?

According to the Global Carbon Project, the country’s emissions were expected to grow by 4% in 2024, but a favorable monsoon, which reduced cooling demand, and increased use of renewable energy limited the rise to 1.4%. India’s carbon emissions in 2025 grew at a slower pace compared to the previous year. According to the official tracker of fossil fuel emissions, the Global Carbon Project, while global carbon emissions are expected to increase by 38 billion tons or 1.1% this year, India’s emissions are expected to rise by 1.4%. This is lower than in recent years – in 2024, India’s emissions had increased by 4% compared to the previous year. The slower growth was partly due to the favorable monsoon, which reduced cooling demand, along with a “strong increase in renewable energy,” leading to reduced coal usage. Global emission trends estimate that China’s emissions will increase by 0.4% in 2025, which is slower growth compared to recent years. In 2025, emissions are expected to rise in the United States (+1.9%) and the European Union (0.4%). Overall, India is the third largest emitter with 3.2 billion tons of annual carbon (2024), led by the United States (4.9 billion tons) and China (12 billion tons). India’s per capita emissions are 2.2 tons of carbon dioxide per year, the second lowest among the world’s 20 largest economies. Coal is the primary fuel type contributing to India’s emissions. The projected increase in global fossil CO2 emissions in 2025 is driven by all fuel types: coal +0.8%, oil +1%, natural gas +1.3%. Total CO2 emissions— the sum of fossil and land-use change emissions—have grown more slowly in the past decade (0.3% per year) compared to the previous decade (1.9% per year). The remaining carbon budget to limit global warming to 1.5°C has ‘almost run out.’The remaining budget for 1.5°C is 170 billion tons of CO2, which is equivalent to four years of emissions at 2025 levels. Professor Pierre Friedlingstein of the Global Systems Institute at Exeter, who led the study, said, “CO2 emissions are still rising, and it is no longer possible to keep global warming below 1.5°C.” The remaining carbon budget for 1.5°C, 170 billion tons of carbon dioxide, will be exhausted before 2030 at the current emission rate. Our estimate is that climate change is now reducing the combined land and ocean sinks. The latest figures have come at a time when world leaders have gathered in Belém, Brazil, to make progress toward moving away from fossil fuel use, and they are also discussing how to pay for the cost of strengthening safeguards against the impacts of human-induced climate change.