The worldwide economic slowdown is having an unexpected positive impact in the fight against global warming: Emissions of carbon dioxide are falling, records collected by governments show.

From the United States to Europe to China, the global economic crisis has forced offices to close and factories to cut back. That means less use of fossil fuels such as coal to make energy. Fossil-fuel burning, which creates carbon dioxide, is the primary human contributor to global warming.

A recession-driven drop in emissions "is good for the environment," says Emilie Mazzacurati of Point Carbon, an energy research company. "In the long term, that's not how we want to reduce emissions."

As carbon dioxide builds in the atmosphere, it traps heat and warms the Earth. The result: melting glaciers, rising seas and fiercer droughts.

The lower emissions are caused partly by milder weather - which means less energy is needed for cooling and heating - and by policies that promote energy efficiency, but experts agree that economic problems play a role.

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The emission decreases are unusual and in some cases unprecedented:

• Electricity production by Chinese power plants has been lower every month since September compared with the same months a year earlier, says Richard Morse, a Stanford University energy researcher. A drop in power generation translates to a drop in carbon-dioxide output. These are the first such drops in Chinese power production since the Chinese economic boom in the 1990s.

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