AbstractSatellite remote sensing observations show an increased greenness trend over land in recent decades. While greenness observations can indicate increased productivity, estimation of total annual productivity is highly dependent on vegetation response to climate and environmental conditions. Models have been struggling to determine how much carbon is taken up by plants as a result of increased atmospheric CO2 fertilization. Current remote sensing light use efficiency (LUE) models contain considerable uncertainty due to the lack of spatial and temporal variability in maximum LUE parameter and climate sensitivity defined for global plant functional types (PFTs). We used the optimum LUE (LUEopt) previously derived from the global FLUXNET network to improve estimation of global gross primary productivity (GPP) for the period 1982–2016. Our results indicate increasing GPP in northern latitudes owing to reduced cold temperature constraints on plant growth, thereby suggesting increasing negative carbon‐climate feedback in high latitudes. In the tropics, by contrast, our results indicate an emerging positive climate feedback, mainly due to increasing atmospheric vapor pressure deficit (VPD). Further pervasive VPD increase is likely to continue to reduce global GPP and amplify carbon emissions.