Net-zero notes: Drum-roll... are emissions under control?

Research evidence excerpt

Net-zero notes: Drum-roll... are emissions under control?

1 July 2026

Net-zero notes Sustainability

Drum-roll… are emissions under control? Global

The answer is… kind of, but not really Zoe Knight

This week the Energy Institute1 published the 75th edition of the Statistical Review of Global Head, Sustainability Research & Integration

HSBC Bank Middle East Limited, DIFC

World Energy, covering comprehensive time series datasets of global energy flows to zoe.knight@hsbc.com

the end of 2025. Formerly published by BP, this data is set out by country and covers +971 508951407

CO2 from energy and other sources, total energy supply, and consumption by fuel

and import and exports. Since we provide investors with insights on net-zero

transition across asset classes, information about the status of energy systems has

read across for future investment opportunities as countries implement (or not) their

climate plans (known in UN jargon as nationally determined contributions).

The good news is that global emissions have grown at a slower pace than overall

energy supply growth, signalling an element of decarbonisation, and are growing at a

slower rate than in previous years (see Chart 1 overleaf). The less good news is that

there is a large country divergence between the world’s two largest emitters – US

and China, together contributing 44.6% of global CO2 in 2025 – with US emissions

slipping back into growth territory after two years of decline, and China continuing its

improvement journey with the lowest rate of emissions growth since 2017 (Chart 2).

The US represented the swing factor in the overall emission growth of 1.1% from

2024 to 2025 – over a third of the global increase to CO2 from energy came from the

US, and emissions growth in the US was almost 3x that of China.