Decoupling, Dumb and Dumber

Climate change isn’t solved, but we’re told there’s been a breakthrough: a growing share of the global economy is supposedly expanding while carbon emissions are falling. Decoupling, we’re assured, is no longer theoretical. It’s happening at scale.

That’s the central claim made by the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit in its report on progress since the Paris Climate Accords. The report goes further, presenting a chart that shows all of North America, Europe, Australia, and much of South America as having absolutely decoupled GDP from emissions (Figure 1).

The problem is that these conclusions are based on consumption-based emissions. If the goods being consumed were manufactured elsewhere, the associated carbon emissions are assigned to another country and effectively disappear from the ledger. What looks like decoupling is largely an accounting trick, not a physical reduction in global emissions.

Figure 1. Consumption-based emissions decoupling state, 2015-2023. All the areas in green have decoupled carbon emissions and economic growth “absolutely.” Source: ECIU digitally redrawn by Labyrinth Consulting Services, Inc.

The world, however, is a single physical system—and global carbon emissions are rising, not falling. The ECIU’s case rests almost entirely on rich countries that have outsourced their emissions. That is the core flaw. The analysis emphasizes OECD countries, where domestic emissions appear to be declining, while downplaying the rest of the world, where emissions are rising rapidly (Figure 2). When viewed as a whole system, there is no decarbonization success story. There is no good news at the global level.

Figure 2. The world is a system. Carbon reductions in rich countries don’t matter when global emissions keep rising. National “decoupling” narratives are comforting but dishonest stories. Source: ICOS ((integrated Carbon Observation System) & Labyrinth Consulting Services, Inc.

Figure 3 shows what’s actually happened since the Paris Accords. Mitigation efforts—renewable energy, carbon capture, electric vehicles—have not changed the trajectory of global CO₂ emissions at all. Nor is there any evidence of decoupling between emissions and GDP. Economic growth and carbon emissions continue to move together, just as they always have.

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