The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has once again made the impacts of natural disasters a hot topic in academia. The environmental impacts of natural disasters, however, remain unsettled in the existing literature. This study aims to investigate the impact of natural disasters on CO₂ emissions. For this purpose, we employ a panel dataset covering 138 countries over the period 1990–2018 and two dynamic panel estimation methods. Then, considering the differences in CO₂ emissions across various countries, we run a panel quantile regression to examine the asymmetry in the nexus between natural disasters and CO₂ emissions. We also discuss the mediating effects of energy consumption between natural disasters and CO₂ emissions. After conducting a series of robustness checks, we confirm that our results are stable and convincing. The empirical results indicate that natural disasters significantly reduce CO₂ emissions. Nevertheless, the impact of natural disasters on CO₂ emissions is asymmetric across different quantiles of CO₂ emissions. Furthermore, the technology level serves as an important moderating factor between natural disasters and CO₂ emissions. The mediating effect results reveal that natural disasters not only directly reduce CO₂ emissions but also indirectly promote carbon reduction by restraining energy consumption. Finally, several policy implications are provided to reduce CO₂ emissions and the damage caused by natural disasters.