A stark new scientific report reveals that global fossil fuel emissions are on track to reach a record high in 2025, severely undermining the international effort to limit dangerous climate change. The findings cast a shadow over the COP30 climate summit, where world leaders are gathered to address the crisis.

The annual Global Carbon Budget report, published Thursday, provides a comprehensive assessment of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels, cement production, and land-use changes like deforestation. The study consistently measures these figures against the critical warming thresholds established in the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement, which aims to hold global temperature rise to "well below 2°C" and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

The international team of scientists behind the report found that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are projected to be 1.1% higher in 2025 than in 2024. Driven by increased use of oil, gas, and coal, the total is expected to hit a new peak of 38.1 billion tons of CO2.

This increase persists despite significant global growth in renewable energy, which the report confirms has been insufficient to keep pace with rising overall energy demand.

Published as nations convene for the COP30 talks in the Amazonian city of Belem, Brazil, the report delivers a particularly grim calculation: the world has a remaining "carbon budget" of just 170 billion tons of CO2 to have a 50% chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C.

"This equates to four years of emissions at the current rate before the budget for 1.5C is exhausted, so that is impossible, essentially," said lead author Pierre Friedlingstein of the University of Exeter.

The failure to curb planet-heating emissions looms large over the summit. The proceedings are further complicated by the absence of a high-level delegation from the United States, the world's second-largest polluter after China.

The decision by Washington aligns with the stance of President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement, slashed funding for renewable energy, and championed fossil fuel projects. At the UN General Assembly in September, President Trump labeled climate change the "greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world."