Absolute Decoupling
Statistics
- "between 2000 and 2014, twenty-one countries, including the us, Germany, the uk, Spain and Sweden, all managed to absolutely decouple gdp growth from co2 emissions—that is, gdp in these countries expanded over this fourteen-year period, while co2 emissions fell." [1]
Discussion
Robert Pollin:
"To make real progress on climate stabilization, the single most critical project is to cut the consumption of oil, coal and natural gas dramatically and without delay. The reason why this is so crucial is because producing and consuming energy from fossil fuel is responsible for generating about 70 per cent of the greenhouse-gas emissions that are causing climate change. Carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal, oil and natural gas alone produce about 66 per cent of all greenhouse-gas emissions, with another 2 per cent caused mainly by methane leakages during extraction. The most recent worldwide data from the International Energy Agency (iea) indicate that global co2 emissions were around 32 billion tons in 2015.footnote7 The reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (ipcc), which provide conservative benchmarks for what is required to stabilize the average global temperature at no more than 2° Celsius above the pre-industrial average, suggest that global co2 emissions need to fall by about 40 per cent within twenty years, to 20 billion tons per year, and by 80 per cent as of 2050, to 7 billion tons.footnote8
The global economy is nowhere near on track to meet these goals. Overall global emissions rose by 43 per cent between 2000 and 2015, from 23 to 32 billion tons per year, as economies throughout the world continued to burn increasing amounts of oil, coal and natural gas to produce energy. According to the iea’s 2017 forecasting model, if current global policies remain on a steady trajectory through 2040, global co2 emissions will rise to 43 billion tons per year. The iea also presents what it terms a ‘New Policies’ forecast for 2040, with the global ‘new policies’ corresponding closely to the agreements reached at the un-sponsored 2015 Paris Climate Summit. Coming out of the conference, all 196 countries formally recognized the grave dangers posed by climate change and committed to substantially lowering their emissions. Nevertheless, the iea estimates that, under its New Policies scenario, global co2 emissions will still rise to 36 billion tons per year as of 2040. Moreover, the iea’s forecast takes no account of the fact that the Paris commitments were non-binding on the signatory governments, nor that the United States under Trump has renounced the agreement. In short, there is at present nothing close to an international project in place capable of moving the global economy onto a viable climate-stabilization path. footnote9
People still need to consume energy—to light, heat and cool buildings; to power cars, buses, trains and planes; to operate computers and industrial machinery, among other uses. As such, to make progress toward climate stabilization requires a viable alternative to the existing fossil-fuel infrastructure for meeting the world’s energy needs. Energy consumption, and economic activity more generally, therefore need to be absolutely decoupled from the consumption of fossil fuels—that is, fossil-fuel consumption will need to fall steadily and dramatically in absolute terms, even while people must still be able to consume energy resources to meet their various demands. The more modest goal of relative decoupling—through which fossil-fuel consumption and co2 emissions continue to increase, but at a slower rate than gdp growth—is therefore not a solution. Economies can continue to grow—and even grow rapidly, as in China and India—while still advancing a viable climate-stabilization project, as long as the growth process is absolutely decoupled from fossil-fuel consumption. In fact, between 2000 and 2014, twenty-one countries, including the us, Germany, the uk, Spain and Sweden, all managed to absolutely decouple gdp growth from co2 emissions—that is, gdp in these countries expanded over this fourteen-year period, while co2 emissions fell.\ This is a positive development, but only a small step in the right direction." (https://newleftreview.org/issues/II112/articles/robert-pollin-de-growth-vs-a-green-new-deal)