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Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reached an all-time high of 60.63 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent (BtCO2e) in 2025, 0.5 per cent or 303.19 Mt CO2e more than in 2024, according to the latest update from Climate TRACE, an independent group which monitors and publishes GHG emissions.
The global methane (CH4) emissions also reverted back from a decline in 2024 to reach a new annual record of 412.59 Mt CH4, an increase of 1.03 per cent or 4.2 Mt from the previous year.
“Despite a small decline in power sector emissions, fossil fuel operations, transportation, manufacturing, and buildings all nudged global greenhouse gas emissions higher,” said the report.
The power sector in China showed a year-on-year decline for the first time since at least 2015, according to the report. India’s power sector emissions fell for the first time since 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic was ongoing and consequent lockdowns were in place.
GHG emissions for every month of 2025 were higher than the corresponding month in 2024. Among countries, the steepest increase in emissions was in Russia, while the largest decrease in GHG emissions was observed in India. The emissions in Russia increased by 51.6 Mt or 1.64 per cent and the emissions in India dropped by 27.5 Mt or 0.65 per cent. Mexico and Australia were the other two countries with a significant drop in annual GHG emissions of 7.2 Mt and 7 Mt respectively.
The power sector had the largest share of the emissions in 2025 at 26 per cent. “Climate TRACE data show that global power sector emissions fell slightly, decreasing by 0.13% or 20.31 Mt CO2e in 2025 — the first decline since the COVID-19 pandemic,” said the report.
“Most of the decline came from electricity generation in India and China (more on this in the section on clean energy uptake below), but Russia, Australia, and Poland also saw significant drops in their power sector emissions,” it added.
The highest growth in emissions among sectors was fossil fuel operations with an increase 151.57 Mt CO2e or 1.56 per cent. Among sub sectors, the largest increase in emissions of 4.1 per cent was observed in oil and gas production. Russia’s oil and gas production was responsible for most of these emissions.
The rate of growth of worldwide GHG emissions has halved from a year-on-year average of 1.1 per cent between 2013 and 2023 to 0.5 per cent in 2025. In fact, excluding the pandemic year of 2020, the last two years have seen the lowest growth in emissions since 2015, the year of the Paris Agreement.
For the two largest emitters, China and United States, the GHG emissions remained relatively flat. China observed an increase of 48.8 Mt or 0.28 per cent in emissions while for the United States the hike was 16.2 Mt or 0.23 per cent.
“China’s greenhouse gas emissions have been steadily increasing over the past decade, but the rate of increase has slowed,” according to the report.
Between 2015 and 2023, China’s GHG emissions increased by an average of 2.66 per cent per year between 2015 and 2023. But the country’s emissions grew by 0.52 per cent in 2024 and by 0.28 per cent in 2025, the lowest value of growth since 2015.
“Despite some annual fluctuations — particularly the drop in emissions due to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent rebound — US emissions have remained roughly flat over the past decade,” according to the report. “Last year, the US power sector saw its second largest increase in emissions in the past decade (the largest was the post-pandemic rebound in 2021), an increase of nearly 1.8% or 26 Mt CO2e,” said the report.