And though India comes third on the world’s list of polluters, its growth in annual carbon-dioxide emission in 2025 was its lowest on record except 2020, which saw the pandemic-induced shutdown, according to the Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy dataset (going back to 1965). Fossil fuels, however, made up 93 per cent of India’s energy supply.
The country’s carbon-dioxide emission rose by just 0.6 per cent, or 9 million tonnes, last year to 2.96 billion tonnes. This was much lower than the 4.4 per cent growth in 2024 and the 3.4 per cent increase in 2015-25, according to calculations based on the report.
The decline last year was chiefly because of lower temperatures, which reduced the need for electricity, according to the government data.
The US was the biggest contributor to growth in global emission because of pro-fossil fuel policies of the climate-sceptic Donald Trump administration, which also pulled out of the United Nations climate treaty.
Emission in the US grew by 3.1 per cent, or 129 million tonnes, making the country the biggest contributor to the increase in global carbon-dioxide emission from energy use, to 4.75 billion tonnes, according to the report, which Ember, KPMG and Kearney collaborated on and is being published since 1952.
Global emission grew by 1.1 per cent last year from 2024. China, which accounts for nearly a third of it, grew its emission by only 0.7 per cent last year to 11.2 billion tonnes because of a surge in renewables and the increasing use of electric vehicles. In 2025, coal was the main source of India’s energy (59 per cent), followed by oil (28 per cent), according to the institute.
“In contrast to historical trends, the year saw no overall growth in India’s fossil fuel consumption, with gas consumption falling by 5.9 per cent, coal consumption growing by only 0.6 per cent, and oil by 0.3 per cent,” the report said.
“The cause of this was a mixture of weather-driven and structural effects.”
India also set records in growth in wind and solar generation, while good hydro conditions further boosted renewables’ output.
India’s behind-the-meter solar capacity increased by 40 per cent year-on-year to reach 43.6 gigawatts (Gw), which was the largest increase outside China in 2025.
Together these factors led to a 3 per cent fall in coal generation and a 15 per cent dip in gas output, the report said. But lack of transmission infrastructure prevented a further integration of renewables, following rapid increases in capacity in the last five years.
Global emission in carbon dioxide from the energy sector rose by 1.1 per cent to 35.8 billion tonnes. And emission from energy, gas flaring and methane rose by 1.1 per cent to 41 billion tonnes.
Remarkably, 36 per cent of that rise (to 35.8 billion tonnes) was in the US, with its year-on-year growth almost three
times the global expansion.
The only region that exceeded that rate was Africa, which is growing from a small base (and amounts to less than a fifth of North America’s energy supply).
In 2025, the Asia-Pacific region improved the carbon intensity of its energy production, but remained the world’s greatest emitter, with 54 per cent of global emission from energy (19.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide).
Emission from the energy sector in Europe in 2025 increased only by 0.5 per cent. North America had the second-largest regional growth rate for energy emission at 2.7 per cent and the largest growth in absolute terms of 152.3 million tonnes, bucking the region’s 10-year decline trend of 0.7 per cent. In absolute terms, the increase in US emission was four times that of China.
North America is the only region to increase its carbon intensity of energy in 2025.
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