Six Of The 16 Major Emitters Reduced Their Emissions In 2025

Nevertheless, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reached a record high.

Human activities worldwide in 2025 emitted a record 54 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO_₂ equivalent (CO_₂eq) emissions into the atmosphere, excluding land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF).

This marks a 0.7% rise compared to 2024. Thus, the post-COVID-19 upward trajectory continues, although at a lower rate compared to the previous year, according to the latest data from the European Commission’s Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR), compiled in cooperation with the International Energy Agency (IEA) and published in a new JRC report, GHG emissions of all world countries.

Shifting trends among major global emitters
The six largest emitters—China, the United States, India, the EU, Russia, and Indonesia—together accounted for 62% of global GHG emissions in 2025. However, emission changes varied significantly across key economies and sectors:

• The United States registered the largest absolute rise worldwide, increasing emissions by +2.2% compared to 2024.
• For the first time, China and India maintained or reduced their emission levels (+0.1% and -0.2%).
• Reductions were observed across major contributors. Six of the 16 major emitters (contributing over 1% of global emissions) achieved reductions in 2025, including Australia, Brazil and Japan.
• The EU reduced its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (excluding LULUCF) by 0.2% relative to 2024, achieving a 35.6% total reduction from 1990 levels. The EU's share of global total emissions declined further to 5.8%. Additionally, the EU GHG emissions per capita (7.1 t CO₂eq/cap) continued their decline towards the global average value (6.6 t CO₂eq/cap). Note that the EDGAR figures have a different basis than those used to track progress towards EU targets, based on the EU GHG Inventory.
• Türkiye recorded the highest relative increase among major emitters (+4.2%), alongside notable rises in Iran and Saudi Arabia.
• Aviation and maritime shipping continued their post-pandemic rebound, increasing by 5.1% and 1.4%, respectively.

Land use and wildfires
Atmospheric CO_₂ can accumulate as carbon in vegetation and soils, which act as sinks. Through the LULUCF sector, human activities directly affect these carbon stores. In 2025, LULUCF was a net source of about 0.9 Gt CO₂eq globally, equivalent to 1.6% of global GHG emissions of that year, also due to the contribution of wildfires.

However, carbon removal mechanisms faced severe pressure:

• Deforestation released 3.7 Gt CO_₂, offsetting more than twice the amount removed by the LULUCF sink globally.
• Wildfires generated 2.2 Gt CO_₂eq in global emissions in 2025. While this was below the long-term historical average, regional spikes were observed.
• The EU LULUCF sector remained a net forest sink at around 0.2 Gt CO_₂eq, but carbon removal levels were lower than in 1990, driven in part by increased regional wildfire emissions from 2024 to 2025 (+40%).

Background
Research supporting policies aimed at climate neutrality is a strategic priority for the JRC. EDGAR’s robust, independent scientific data directly feeds into the Competitive Compass and the Clean Industrial Deal—two key EU initiatives focused on enhancing the sustainability, competitiveness, and autonomy of EU industries while helping decision-makers navigate the economic costs of climate action.

Managed by the JRC in cooperation with the International Energy Agency (IEA), EDGAR provides independent, comparable data across all countries and sectors from 1970 to 2025, supporting European Commission policy through the Directorate-General for Climate Action in UN climate negotiations under the  UNFCCC.

Additionally, EDGAR data directly feeds into the annual UNEP Emissions Gap Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Reports and supports the IPCC Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories to map global emission hotspots and guide evidence-based mitigation.