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No growth in total global CO2 emissions in 2009

In 2009, for the first time since 1992, there was no growth in global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuel use, cement production and chemicals production. The recent credit crunch drove many industrialised economies into recession, particularly OECD countries and Russia, and led to a dramatic decrease in CO2 emissions of 7% in 2009 in these countries. This drop of 800 million tonnes in emissions has compensated for the continued strong increase in CO2 emissions in China and India of 9 and 6%, respectively. In the same year, emissions in other developing countries did not vary as much. These preliminary estimates have been made by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) on the basis of energy data for 2008 and 2009 recently published by BP (British Petroleum) and the International Energy Agency (IEA). The estimates are also based on production data on cement, ammonia and steel and emissions per country from 1970 to 2005 from the joint EDGAR project of the European Commission

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