This is one among many – 835 to be precise – according to an exhaustive review of the literature.
This is tiny – three times smaller than the yearly 7.6% cut of global emissions that would be necessary to meet 1.5°C Paris target .
In the Le Quéré study, its consumption-based emissions decreased by -2.1% per year between 2005 and 2015 with positive GDP rates of around 1.1%.
The fact that these rates are so small is worrying because we’re dealing here with the supposedly best country cases of decoupling.
To be precise, this is one tenth of what would be needed at the global level to meet the Paris climate goals; and if 64 countries managed to reduce emissions, 150 others did not.
And rates of reduction in rich nations of 1-3% are far from enough to compensate for the surge in resource use currently taking place in the global South.
At that pace, and assuming carbon neutrality, it would take almost three millennia for France to resorb its climate debt.
Emissions in the 18 studied countries decreased by -2.4% each year, but how big was GDP growth during that period? The answer: small.
This leaves only a few studies that have been conducted on other aspects of ecological breakdown, including material use, water use, land change, water pollution, waste, and biodiversity loss.
While there are a few inspiring stories of decoupling concerning carbon emissions, studies that track other indicators tell us a different story, one in which the economy is still strongly coupled with biophysical throughput.
My point is that a “sustainable” economy in any meaningful understanding of the term must consider all the complex interactions it has with ecosystems, and not only carbon.
Mitigating environmental pressures in a growing economy not only implies achieving absolute decoupling from GDP, but also requires maintaining such decoupling in time for as long as the economy grows .
In fact, it was mainly due to China moving from coal to oil and gas at the same time that the United States was shifting to shale gas.
In the decade between 2005 and 2015, Austria, Finland, and Sweden greened their energy mix and, as a result, lowered their emissions.
Yet, global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions are on course to surge by 1.5 billion tons in 2021 – the second-largest increase in history – reversing most of the decline caused by the pandemic.
If carbon emissions decreased by -2.4% with a +1.1% rise in GDP growth, imagine how faster they could be reduced if economic growth was not prioritised above the unthinkable risks of runaway ecological breakdown.
What happened through crisis could also take place in a more managed fashion in the form of a prosperity without growth in countries consuming more than their fair share of the global carbon budget.
For example, we could degrow aviation by setting airport quotas on the number of flights per day, restricting the construction of new airports and runways, and introducing a Frequent Flyer Levy .
Fourth, the study period is limited and there is little to guarantee that what decoupling may have occurred will not recouple later on.
Considering the increasing demand for resources in the most disadvantaged regions of the world, the continued obsession with growth in already affluent nations is becoming untenable.
One thing is resoundingly clear, what we need to do away with is the growth-at-all-cost mentality that sacrifices social-ecological health to prioritize GDP above all else.
Resilience is a program of Post Carbon Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping the world transition away from fossil fuels and build sustainable, resilient communities.