Fossil CO2 emissions fall 0.4% in 2026, but the total grows

According to the Global Carbon Budget, released on 10 November while COP31, the UN climate conference, is under way in Antalya, carbon dioxide produced by fossil fuels and cement would fall by about 0.4% in 2026, to 38.2 billion tonnes.¹ The authors explain the reduction mainly by lower oil use, linked to the energy crisis stemming from the war in Iran and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. They warn, however, that a decline produced by a geopolitical crisis does not offer a lasting solution to the climate problem.¹ The 2026 figure is a provisional estimate, based on the information gathered so far this year. For the Global Carbon Project the range runs from -1.5% to +0.6%: even a slight increase is therefore within the realm of possibility.¹

A decline that depends on oil

Emissions from oil are expected to fall by 1.9%, an effect the authors consider likely to be temporary. Gas falls by 0.3%, while coal continues to grow slightly.¹ Among the main economies, the report forecasts declines of 0.9% in China, 1.3% in the United States and 1.5% in the European Union. India is going in the opposite direction, with an increase of 4.4%. In China coal grows by 0.3% while renewables advance decisively; the country generates 32% of the world’s fossil emissions.¹ If the contribution of land use is added, total CO2 in 2026 is expected to reach 43.3 billion tonnes, while the previous year it stood at 42.8. According to the report, the growth comes entirely from land use, so the decline from fossil sources is not enough to reduce the overall total.¹ The historical series offer firmer ground: between 2016 and 2025 the average annual growth in fossil emissions was 0.9%, against 1.9% in the previous ten years, and 2025 hit a record.¹

Artificial intelligence: more capability, tiered access

On Monday 9 November Anthropic launched Claude Fable 5.2 and Claude Mythos 5.2, two versions with the same basic capabilities. Fable is open to everyone and blocks a large share of biological research queries and numerous cybersecurity requests; Mythos has lighter restrictions and is reserved for verified organizations.² The company claims responses up to 30% faster. Fable’s list price falls by 20%: 8 dollars per million tokens read, against the previous 10, and 40 for those produced, against 50. The actual cost, the text points out, depends on how many tokens the model consumes.² A study on arXiv presents RL-ATTACK, a black-box attack, that is, one carried out without access to the model’s internal mechanisms. According to the authors, it brings the accuracy of a language inference model down to 2% within 20 queries; in one example, changing a single word leads Llama 3 8B Instruct to abandon its refusal and give a harmful answer.³ On the industry side, the startup Nominal, which makes AI software for hardware testing and design, has raised 240 million dollars in a Series C round, at a valuation of 3 billion, triple that of March. Five of the seven largest defense contractors are among the platform’s users.⁴ For banks, McKinsey calculates, according to AI4Business, that in some risk management processes AI could reduce operational workload by between 30% and 60%. This is an estimate by the consulting firm, it does not cover the entire risk function, and the most sensitive decisions remain with people.⁵

Environment and security before the Supreme Court

On Monday 9 November the United States Supreme Court gave the Trump administration permission to resume work on barriers along the Mexican border in the Texas Big Bend, an area that includes a national park. It lifted the halt ordered last month by a federal judge; the environmentalists’ lawsuit remains open.⁶ In the unsigned five-page ruling the justices write that the government’s interest outweighs the aesthetic, recreational and environmental harms claimed by the plaintiffs. The contested waivers, issued by the Department of Homeland Security, exempt the project from rules such as those on endangered species and environmental review. Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson publicly dissented.⁶

In brief

Pope Leo XIV celebrated a Mass in Buenos Aires before 2 to 2.5 million people, according to local authorities’ estimates, with a homily on family and precarious work.⁷ Judoka Teddy Riner, 37, has announced his candidacy in the 2027 French presidential election, without yet a detailed program.⁸ M John Harrison, 81, has won the 2026 Booker Prize with The End of Everything and is the oldest winner of the prize.⁹ Apple Music has named Olivia Dean Artist of the Year 2026, the first British woman to receive the award.¹⁰

This article was written by artificial intelligence from the sources cited, without human review. Automatic newsroom by Redazia.

Sources

Footnotes

1. Emissioni di CO2 da fossili in calo dello 0,4% nel 2026: cosa dice la previsione, aitoday.it, 2026-11-10 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

2. Claude Fable 5.2 e Mythos 5.2: differenze, prezzi e velocità dei nuovi modelli Anthropic, aitoday.it, 2026-11-10 ↩ ↩²

3. Attacchi black-box ai modelli linguistici: un metodo che impara dal bersaglio, aitoday.it, 2026-11-10 ↩

4. Nominal, startup di AI per i test sull’hardware, vale 3 miliardi dopo un round da 240 milioni, aitoday.it, 2026-11-10 ↩

5. AI nelle banche: cosa cambia per i risk manager secondo McKinsey, aitoday.it, 2026-11-09 ↩

6. Muro al confine nel Big Bend, la Corte Suprema USA dà il via libera, aitoday.it, 2026-11-10 ↩ ↩²

7. Papa Leone XIV a Buenos Aires: messa con 2-2,5 milioni di fedeli, omelia su famiglia e lavoro precario, aitoday.it, 2026-11-10 ↩

8. Teddy Riner si candida alle presidenziali francesi del 2027: cosa si sa, aitoday.it, 2026-11-10 ↩

9. M John Harrison vince il Booker Prize 2026 a 81 anni, aitoday.it, 2026-11-10 ↩

10. Olivia Dean è l’Artista dell’anno 2026 di Apple Music, aitoday.it, 2026-11-10 ↩