Carbon emissions might be decoupling from economic growth

[SolarpunkFan]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ene ... led-again/

Roughly a year ago, the International Energy Agency announced a wonky yet nonetheless significant development. Looking at data for the year 2014, the agency found that although the global economy grew — by 3.4 percent that year — greenhouse gas emissions from the use of energy (their largest source) had not. They had stalled at about 32.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, just as in 2013.

The agency called this a “decoupling” of growth from carbon dioxide emissions, and noted that it was the “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.” For decades prior to 2014, economic growth had pretty much always meant more pollution of the atmosphere, and a worsening climate problem.

It now seems like 2014 wasn’t just a fluke — IEA is saying the same thing about 2015. In a news release Wednesday, the agency said that 2014’s hint of decoupling had now been “confirmed,” as 2015 also saw flat emissions combined with 3.1 percent global GDP growth. Emissions, the agency said, were just 32.1 billion metric tons in 2015, based on preliminary data — indicating perhaps even a slight downturn from 2014.

There's only two data points and there are wildcards that could influence future emissions, but if things hold steady like this it can only be a good thing.

[madd0ct0r]

It's two data points, but a lot of countries feed into it and I'll bet some of them decoupled a few years before. And those countries have lots of sectors of the economy. It'd be interesting to know which are the ones generating growth without emissions.

[mr friendly guy]

China has for the past 2 years as I have pointed out in previous threads.

[Ziggy Stardust]

China has for the past 2 years as I have pointed out in previous threads.

Yeah, China's restructuring of their energy sector has made some pretty good progress, even if they have a very, very long way to go. 1.5% further decline in emissions this year, according to the report (USA declined by 2%, by comparison).

It's two data points, but a lot of countries feed into it and I'll bet some of them decoupled a few years before. And those countries have lots of sectors of the economy. It'd be interesting to know which are the ones generating growth without emissions.

The full report referenced in the OP won't be available until June, but [url=http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/news_docs ... -98184.pdf[/url] this report by the European Commission Joint Research Center breaks down most of the regional statistics for 2014, and I would expect all the trends to be similar. The IEA website only notes that China and the USA had the greatest emissions reductions compared with a moderate increase in Europe and presumably greater (but unspecified) increases in the Middle East and Asian developing nations.