The battle against climate change is far from over. 2014 marked the 18th straight year that temperatures in the United States were above the 20th century average.

Back in September, Jessica Blunden — a scientist at the NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center — told the Washington Post that the world had experienced a whopping 355 straight months (nearly 30 years) of temperatures above the 20th century average.

But there was one bit of good climate news last year: 2014 was the first year in 40 years that the global economy grew while CO 2 emissions remained level.

This “decoupling” of economic growth and carbon emissions was announced in a press release from the International Energy Agency on Friday (3/14).

“Data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) indicate that global emissions of carbon dioxide from the energy sector stalled in 2014, marking the first time in 40 years in which there was a halt or reduction in emissions of the greenhouse gas that was not tied to an economic downturn,”

the IEA wrote in its release.

The IEA reports that global carbon emissions totaled 35.6 billions tons last year – the same amount as in 2013. The agency attributed this stall in emissions to the recent push towards renewables and increased energy efficiency across the developed world:

“In China, 2014 saw greater generation of electricity from renewable sources, such as hydropower, solar and wind, and less burning of coal. In OECD economies, recent efforts to promote more sustainable growth – including greater energy efficiency and more renewable energy – are producing the desired effect of decoupling economic growth from greenhouse gas emissions.”

A key factor in the United States was the recent natural gas boom brought on by increased fracking. According to Robert Stavins, an environmental economist at the Harvard Kennedy School, this increased flow of natural gas has,

“…led to significant increases in dispatch of gas-fired electricity generation, relative to dispatch of coal-fired generation, as well as increased investment in new gas-fired electric generation capacity, and cessation of investment in new coal generation in the United States.”

Stavins added that improvements in home energy efficiency and increased auto fuel efficiency (a result of the government’s CAFE standards) also played roles in curbing U.S. emissions.

The IEA has been collecting data on carbon emissions and the global economy for the past 40 years.

During that time, there have only been three years in which global carbon emissions have stayed the same or gone down as compared to the previous year. But all three of these instances happened during times of global economic weakness: the early 1980’s; 1992 and 2009.

In 2014, the world economy was able to grow 3% while carbon emission levels remained constant. And while that doesn’t make climate change any less of a problem, it does show that we can, and we are, making a difference.

“This gives me even more hope that humankind will be able to work together to combat climate change, the most important threat facing us today,”

said IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol.

Check out the original report from the IEA. Read more from the Washington Post.