Energy carbon emissions in 2016 flat for third year: IEA

A greener energy mix helped keep energy-related carbon dioxide emissions flat in 2016 yet more needs to be done to avert a harmful rise in global temperatures, International Energy Agency (IEA) data showed on Friday.

Equipment used to capture carbon dioxide
emissions is seen at a coal-fired power plant
 owned by NRG Energy where carbon collected
 from the plant will be used to extract crude
from a nearby oilfield in Thomspsons, Texas,
U.S. on January 9, 2017.

Energy sector emissions of 32.1 gigatons were unchanged from 2015 and 2014 even though the global economy grew by 3.1 percent, the IEA estimated.

"These three years of flat emissions in a growing global economy signal an emerging trend and that is certainly a cause for optimism, even if it is too soon to say that global emissions have definitely peaked," IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said in a statement.

Carbon dioxide emissions fell in the United States and China, the world's two largest energy users and emitters, and were stable in Europe.

Read Nine Chestney’s Reuters story - “Energy carbon emissions in 2016 flat for third year: IEA.”