Global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have stayed almost flat for the third year in a row in what scientists say is a “clear and unpredicted break” that could mark a turning point in the world’s efforts to curb climate change. Emissions are only expected to rise by 0.2 per cent in 2016, having failed to increase in 2015 and growing by just 0.7 per cent in 2014. That is a sharp turnround from the decade up to 2013 when carbon pollution growth averaged 2.3 per cent a year. A fall in the use of coal in China, by far the world’s largest carbon emitter, is the main reason for the slowdown. Global carbon pollution usually slows when a shock to the world’s economy stalls the use of coal, oil and other fossil fuels in factories and power plants. But the global economy has been growing by as much 3 per cent a year as emissions growth has slumped, which is “unprecedented” according to Professor Corinne Le Quéré of the UK’s University of East Anglia, an author of research to be unveiled at UN climate talks in Marrakesh on Monday.