Recessions Are Healthy

Ya gotta love the irony of it. People have less money to spend, so they make less trips to the mall, the supermarket, the video store. With the car stuck in the garage, that’s less fossil fuel burned, meaning less CO2 spewed into the tired old atmosphere.

Oh, but it doesn't stop there: less spending equals less purchases, which translates to less manufacturing, meaning less emissions at the factory. According to a study done by the International Energy Agency, both the global economic crisis and government policies are causing greenhouse gas emissions to plummet.

The study found that the burning of fossil fuels dropped more in 2009 than in any year over the past four decades. Economic factors include the huge decrease in demand for energy worldwide, as well as scrapped plans for energy expansion due to loss of financing. However, a full quarter of the decline is accredited to policy, the largest contributors being Europe’s plan to cut emissions 20 percent by 2020, China’s critical advances in energy efficiency, and higher standards for new cars in the U.S.

This information comes from an early excerpt of the IEA’s annual report, the World Energy Outlook 2009. The excerpt will be released at the important United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, taking place in Bangkok between Sept. 28 and Oct. 9. At the meeting, international policymakers will engage in the final sessions leading up to the all-important Kyoto II climate-change conference occurring in December in Copenhagen.

So who said recessions are bad?

Photo courtesy NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center via Flickr.