The IEA said that the stagnation was down to several factors.
These include a drop in emissions from electricity production in advanced economies due to the "expanding role" of renewables like wind and solar.
"We now need to work hard to make sure that 2019 is remembered as a definitive peak in global emissions, not just another pause in growth," Fatih Birol, the IEA's executive director, said in a statement. "We have the energy technologies to do this, and we have to make use of them all," Birol added. The European Union saw emissions decline by 160 million tons — equivalent to 5% — while Japan's emissions dropped by 45 million tons. In the EU, output from coal-fired plants fell by over 25% last year, the IEA said, with gas-fired generation rising by "close to 15% to overtake coal for the first time."
"The news that global energy-related emissions stopped growing in 2019, driven by a continued reduction in coal-powered electricity production in developed countries, is a sign of real progress in the fight to prevent dangerous climate change," Simon Retallack, a director at the Carbon Trust, said in a statement sent to CNBC via email.
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