A new study has revealed that a rise in world carbon dioxide emissions almost stalled last year for the first time in almost two decades without a recession, in a promising step towards cleaner economic growth.
World carbon emissions from fossil fuel use and cement production rose 0.5 per cent last year, the report by the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre told Reuters Newsagency.
At the same time, the world economy grew by three per cent in 2014, it said.
It was the smallest rise in emissions, without a recession, since 1998, the study said.
An upwards revision to Chinese coal consumption partly explained why the findings exceeded a flattening of carbon emissions in 2014 reported by the International Energy Agency in March, it said.
Almost 200 nations will meet in Paris from November 30 to December 11 for a United Nations sponsored summit to try to agree ways to combat climate change beyond 2020, to avert impacts such as more floods, droughts and rising sea levels.
“It’s promising but it’s not a clear case that we are already approaching a tipping point” to break the historic link between use of fossil fuels and economic growth, PBL senior scientist Dr Jos Olivier told Reuters.
Meanwhile, government negotiators at the UN climate conference in Paris will meet on Sunday, a day earlier than planned, to let them get down to work before world leaders arrive for the summit on Monday.
The UN Climate Secretariat, announcing the change, said that senior officials from almost 200 nations would meet in the conference hall on the outskirts of Paris on November 29 at 1600 GMT.
Until now, they had been due to meet for the first time only after about 140 world leaders including United States President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping attended on Monday to give speeches of encouragement.
Officials who oversee the talks “considered that an early opening of the session will offer an opportunity to make the best possible use of the very limited time available to finalise negotiations”, the Secretariat said in a statement.
The conference is seeking to agree a deal that signals a break with a rising reliance on fossil fuels, blamed by a UN panel of scientists for causing more floods, heat waves and rising sea levels.
