Scientists project that global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels will decrease by 0.4 percent this year, after having grown by 0.8 percent each year on average from 2019 to 2025.

But the dip may not last. The lower emissions are probably driven by high oil prices stemming from the Iran war, researchers report November 9 in Nature Climate Change .

Global emissions probably would have grown again this year without the energy shock of the Iran war, says Glen Peters, a climate scientist at the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo, Norway. “So the energy transition that’s happening … it’s not quite big enough to get emissions heading downward yet.”

For the study, Peters and his colleagues used data on countries’ electric vehicle stocks and wind and solar energy generation to project those technologies impacts on global fossil CO 2 emissions through 2028.…