For climate-change watchers confronted by soaring temperatures and extreme weather events, the latest Global Carbon Budget study may offer a modicum of solace. Presented on the second day of COP31 in Antalya, Turkey, it forecasts a slight decline in GHG emissions from fossil-fuel burning this year compared to 2025. But the report should be read with all its fine print. The drop is largely a fallout of the energy shock triggered by the Iran war and the expansion of wind and solar power use. Geopolitical upheavals and economic disruptions had catalysed reduced fossil-fuel use in 1992, 1998 and 2009, as did the Covid pandemic in 2020.........

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