The International Energy Agency (IEA) announced today that CO2 emissions in 2014 were flat year on year at 32.3 billion tonnes. This is undoubtedly good news–particularly if it marks the start of a trend.
The chart below is from an article from the FT here (free registration for access). Note, the three previous occasions when emissions flatlined or fell were all associated with recessions or economic crises (click for larger image).
The IEA also points out that global GDP growth in 2014 was around 3%, so the better emission performance was the result of lower GDP-to-energy intensity and reduced energy-to-carbon emissions intensity (the so called Kaya Identify, which maps GDP to emissions, can be found in my post here). Continue reading
Risk and Well-Being 