The rapid spread of renewable energy and improvements in energy efficiency across the globe may have paid off in a big way this year. Researchers are projecting that for the first time in history, the rate of growth in global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels will decline even as the global economy continues to grow.
That decline could eventually lead to a peak in carbon emissions in the next decade or two, according to research led by Stanford University and published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.
"In 2014, global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels grew by just 0.6 percent," lead author Rob Jackson, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford, said. "This year we expect total emissions to flatten or drop slightly, despite strong growth in gross domestic product worldwide."
That has never happened before, he said.
Emissions from a power plant in China. (Mingjia Zhou/flickr)
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