The International Energy Agency is urging us to remember that there’s a good side to the global economic crisis – it’s causing the sharpest plunge in carbon dioxide emissions for 40 years. In a teaser document extracted from its upcoming World Energy Outlook 2009 report, the IEA forecasts that emissions will drop by 3% worldwide this year. The excerpt was released today to coincide with United Nations climate talks in Bangkok, though the full report isn’t out until next month.

The IEA will actually broadcast its silver-lining message three times – it made the same point when its headline statistics were partially leaked to the media last month, and it will do so again when the full World Energy Outlook report appears on 10 November.

Three-quarters of the drop was due to reduction in industrial activity (The Guardian). At first glance that would suggest that the only way to sustain this trend is to keep the world plunged in economic gloom. But the IEA’s chief economist, Fatih Birol, is taking a more positive spin on things: “Because of the financial crisis, many industries have the chance to move away from unsustainable power. If we get a good result at the Copenhagen climate talks, then they could be turned to sustainable energy,” he told The Guardian.

The Wall Street Journal notes that the IEA urges investment of $10 trillion in renewable energy and other carbon-abatement technologies over the next 20 years. Thatis 37% more investment than the agency thought was necessary a year ago to stabilize emissions of carbon dioxide-equivalents at 450 ppm. But, the IEA says, energy efficiency savings across industry, transport and buildings could total $8.6 trillion between today and 2030, similar to the additional investment it wants.

Reuters zooms into the figures a little more, noting that richer emerging economies including Russia, China and the Middle East (but not India) are supposed to stop growing their carbon emissions by 2020 under the IEA’s scenario of climate action. Developing countries “appeared far from committing to that” at current UN talks in Bangkok, however, it notes.