Carbon dioxide emissions, the main driver of global warming, could fall three per cent worldwide in 2009 due to the global economic crisis, the International Energy Agency said today.
This would be the steepest drop in CO2 emissions for 40 years, chief IEA economist Faith Birol said at a press conference in Bangkok, adding that the average annual growth in global carbon output until now has been three per cent.
Birol said this silver-lining drop in carbon pollution was a "unique window opportunity" for the the world to put itself on a path to limit the increase in global temperatures to two degrees, the scientific threshold for dangerous global warming.
