The International Energy Agency (IEA) has stated that due to the financial and economic environment this has deferred energy investment, and carbon emissions could have fallen in 2009 by as much as 3% – this is steeper than at any point in the last 40 years.
The IEA recently acted to move forward an early release of the climate change work within its Wolrd Energy Outlook(WEO) 2009 in order to make a contribution to the climate change talks in Copenhagen this December 09. In the 2009 WEO forecast for 2020 emission levels are 5% lower than those in the WEO 2008, even in the absence of any additional policies. The report argues that the economic downturn has created an opportunity to stabilise atmospheric concentrations of CO2 equivalent at 450 parts per million (ppm), a level thought necessary by many to keep increases in global temperatures below 2 Degrees C.