A wind farm in Albany, Western Australia. Image via Flickr user Lawrence Murray

With major international climate change talks currently underway in Morocco, and the Paris Agreement just now kicking into effect, it’s a good time to talk about global CO2 emissions. Surprisingly, these conversations might not be as depressing as usual, according to new research released at the United Nations conference.

In December last year, researchers at the University of East Anglia and the Global Carbon Project projected that global emissions were slowing down. It appears they were right, and a paper published in the open-access data journal Earth System Science Data on Monday confirms that the growth of worldwide emissions remained low (below one percent) in 2015. Even better, this growth is projected to slow even more this year.

Why does this matter? Well, it could be the start of a downward trend, which would prove massively beneficial in the fight against global warming. If emissions this year are as projected, that will mark three years of almost no CO2 growth. That’s highly unusual.

The downturn of China’s coal consumption is likely to be a contributing factor, while a broader worldwide effort to seek alternative energy sources and burn fossil fuels responsibly seems to be working. In a statement released alongside the research paper, lead author Professor Corinne Le Quéré was cautiously optimistic.

“This third year of almost no growth in emissions is unprecedented at a time of strong economic growth. It is possible that the trajectory of global emissions has permanently deviated from the long-term growth trend,” she said.

It’s not all good news, and there’s still more to be done. The Paris Agreement, which requires countries responsible for a majority of the world’s carbon emissions to mitigate climate change, came into force on November 4. Countries party to the Agreement have pledged to reduce emissions by the year 2030, committing to achieving zero net emissions and limiting global warming to 2 degrees celsius. That’s still a long way off.

“The break in emissions rise is a great help for tackling climate change but it is not enough. Global emissions now need to decrease rapidly, not just stop growing. If climate negotiators in Marrakech can leverage ambitions for further cuts in emissions, we could be making a serious start to addressing climate change,” said Le Quéré.

Another downer: even though fossil fuel emissions are stalling, atmospheric CO2 concentration remains high. As the report details, dry conditions and El Nino events have meant our oceans and forests haven’t been able to act as “carbon sinks” that absorb excess carbon dioxide. Which means emissions head straight to the atmosphere, adding to the greenhouse effect.

Follow Kat on Twitter