CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion have been known to contribute to the greenhouse effect. Research on emission trends and further forecasting their further values is important for adjusting energy policies, particularly those relative to low carbon. Except for a few countries, the main figures of CO2 emission from fossil fuel combustion in other countries are S-shaped curves. The logistic function is selected to simulate the S-shaped curve, and to improve the goodness of fit, three algorithms were provided to estimate its parameters. Considering the different emission characteristics of different industries, the three algorithms estimated the parameters of CO2 emission in each industry separately. The most suitable parameters for each industry are selected based on the criterion of Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE). With the combined simulation values of the selected models, the estimate of total CO2 emission from fossil fuel combustion is obtained. The empirical analysis of China shows that our method is better than the linear model in terms of goodness of fit and simulation risk. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.