Recession resulting in lower emissions

The worldwide economic slowdown is having an unexpected positive impact in the fight against global warming: Emissions of carbon dioxide are falling, records collected by governments show.

From the United States to Europe to China, the global economic crisis has forced offices to close and factories to cut back. That means less use of fossil fuels such as coal to make energy. Fossil-fuel burning, which creates carbon dioxide, is the primary human contributor to global warming.

A recession-driven drop in emissions “is good for the environment,” says Emilie Mazzacurati of Point Carbon, an energy research company. “In the long term, that’s not how we want to reduce emissions.”

As carbon dioxide builds in the atmosphere, it traps heat and warms the Earth. The result: melting glaciers, rising seas and fiercer droughts.

The lower emissions are caused partly by milder weather – which means less energy is needed for cooling and heating – and by policies that promote energy efficiency, but experts agree that economic problems play a role.

The emission decreases are unusual and in some cases unprecedented:

•Carbon dioxide from U.S. power plants fell roughly 3 percent from 2007 to 2008, according to preliminary data from the Environmental Protection Agency analyzed by the Environmental Integrity Project. That’s the biggest drop since 1995-’96, the first two consecutive years for which data are publicly available.

•Carbon dioxide from industrial facilities in 27 European nations in 2008 plummeted 6 percent, according to Point Carbon’s analysis of data published last week by the European Commission.

•Electricity production by Chinese power plants has fallen almost every month since September compared with the same months a year earlier, says Richard Morse, a Stanford University researcher. A drop in power generation translates to a drop in carbon dioxide output.

European nations face a 2012 deadline to cut their emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, a global-warming treaty. The recession could make it easier for countries to meet their goals, says David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, but “I wouldn’t recommend recession as a way to deal with this problem.”