U.S. Coal Push Drives Global Emissions Rise

The United States added 133 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2025, more than any other country. It accounted for 70% of the emissions increase among countries whose emissions rose, a United Nations report said. Higher electricity demand and a rebound in coal power drove the increase.

The emissions figures put U.S. policy at the center of a worsening global outlook. The report said the United States was the only major economy that failed to reduce its fossil-fuel pollution or slow its growth. Every other economy among the top 20 reduced pollution or slowed its increase.

Who bears the projected cost

The United Nations Environment Programme’s updated calculations found that, even if countries meet their submitted climate plans, Earth would still be about 2.6 degrees Celsius, or 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit, hotter than pre-industrial times by 2100. Without those national promises, warming would reach 2.8 degrees Celsius, or 5 degrees Fahrenheit, above temperatures in the last half of the 19th century.

Both projections exceed the 2015 Paris climate pact’s goal of holding warming below 2 degrees Celsius, preferably 1.5 degrees. The same science team projected last year that meeting national plans would produce less warming; the new estimate is higher by about two-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit, or 0.1 degrees Celsius.

The report attributed the worsened outlook to “the formal withdrawal of the United States of America from the Paris Agreement and revised estimates of historical emissions.” Report lead author Anne Olhoff, director of UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre, said the U.S. policy change would most likely add one-tenth of a degree Celsius to global temperatures by the end of the century.

Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, said the U.S. retreat has consequences “for the planet and for millions of people around the world.” He said the added warming could bring more dangerous heat waves, destructive floods, failed harvests and lives lost, while vulnerable communities in Africa already face the climate crisis on the front lines.

Coal policy and public power

Australian climate scientist Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics, which measures countries’ climate-fighting plans, said the United States was “hell-for-leather trying to block renewables while actively promoting and subsidizing dirty coal.” He also said U.S. diplomacy was trying to get other countries to pull back on climate action. Hare wasn’t part of the U.N. report, but he and several outside scientists said it was scientifically sound.

The report said 124 countries that increased emissions added 189 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2025. Sixty-three countries, including most European nations, reduced emissions. The figures show that the U.S. increase wasn’t the only source of rising pollution, but it made up most of the increase among countries moving in that direction.

Plans fall short of the target

The world is now about 1.4 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial times. United Nations officials have conceded that limiting warming to 1.5 degrees is no longer possible; they hope to limit it to about 1.8 degrees before removing enough carbon dioxide from the air to bring temperatures back down.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said the world is falling “dangerously short” of its goals, while saying “we have the tools to change course.” UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen said global carbon emissions must fall 18% by 2030 and 69% by 2040 to return to a reality that remains largely manageable without major impacts.

Climate scientist Adelle Thomas, vice chair of a United Nations scientific assessment on climate impacts, said, “We know what needs to be done. We have the tools to do it. And delay only makes the challenge more dangerous and more expensive for all.” The existing national plans, however, still project warming above the Paris pact’s limits.

Hare said the extra tenth of a degree would put another 140 million people into dangerously hot conditions and raise the odds of the collapse of the Amazon rainforest or ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann said it would cost the world and shave about $1.2 trillion from the global economy.