Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions fell 6% in 2025, to 2.06 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent, the lowest gross volume in eight years. The figures come from the 14th edition of Seeg, the emissions estimate system run by the Observatório do Clima, a network of Brazilian civil society groups, released on Wednesday (21). The drop was driven by falling deforestation across all biomes, above all in the Amazon rainforest and the Cerrado savanna, according to Agência Brasil and Capital Reset.
It was the third consecutive annual decline, after 7.5% in 2023 and 12.7% in 2024. Together, the three cuts reduced gross emissions by 26% over the period and reversed the upward cycle recorded between 2019 and 2022, when forest clearing in the Amazon surged. "The last three years reversed a trend of more than a decade of rising emissions", said David Tsai, Seeg coordinator at the Institute for Energy and Environment (Iema), at a press conference.
Forests drive the decline; energy and waste keep rising
Land use change, the category that covers deforestation, accounted for 39% of gross emissions, at 814 million tonnes, down 15% from 2024. On a net basis, the sector's contraction reached 48%, to 162 million tonnes, the lowest in Seeg's historical series. Agriculture was nearly flat, down 0.1% to 626 million tonnes and 30% of the total: a 6.45% rise in crop farming emissions was offset by a decline from livestock.
Outside the forests, the math still does not add up. The energy sector, which includes transport, grew 1.2% to 427 million tonnes, pushed by higher diesel and gasoline consumption on the roads and by gas-fired power plants, which raised electricity generation emissions by 6%. Waste posted the largest proportional increase, 3.6% to 96 million tonnes, tied to population growth and disposal in landfills and open dumps. Industrial processes edged up 0.2%, to 94 million tonnes.
After discounting carbon removals, 650 million tonnes in 2025, from regrowing secondary vegetation and protected areas such as Indigenous lands and conservation units, Brazil's net emissions totaled 1.41 billion tonnes, down 9% from 2024 and the lowest since 2012.
The result left Brazil 85 million tonnes short of meeting its 2025 climate target under its first NDC (Nationally Determined Contribution, the country's pledge under the Paris Agreement), which set a ceiling of 1.32 billion net tonnes. For 2030, the second NDC, submitted in 2025, requires cutting emissions to a range between 850 million and 1.05 billion tonnes. Preliminary Observatório do Clima data point to negative net land-use emissions in 2026, of minus 24 million tonnes, while the federal government regulates Brazil's new carbon market.
"The drop in emissions from deforestation is a major victory, but if the other sectors do not start cutting their emissions now, it will become hard to meet the next NDC targets", Tsai warned, according to Agência Brasil.