India, Feb. 13 -- International Energy Agency'slatest carbon dioxide numbers try to greenwash biggest historic polluters

The International Energy Agency (IEA)'s Global CO2 emissions in 2019 report is the latest edition of bad data interpretation and visualisation. Their key takeaway is that "global energy-related CO2 emissions flattened in 2019 at around 33 gigatonnes (Gt), following two years of increases" while the global economy grew around 2.9 per cent.

Given the uncertainty surrounding annual emissions data, which often continues to be revised years into the future, that kind of takeaway is irresponsible enough. It evokes the optimism around the ' decoupling' of emissions and economic growth that was all the rage mid-decade. That '...