Rankings for Carbon Emissions
and Economic Growth Decoupling
Mariana Conte Grand
Abstract The main purpose of this chapter is to analyze decoupling between carbon
emissions and economic activity for the different countries in the world within the
1990–2012 period. We qualify decoupling cases. Countries are ranked from those
that decrease emissions while expanding activity (strong decoupling) to those that
augment their greenhouse gases and are in recession (strong negative decoupling).
For the cases in which there exists a conflict between growth and emissions (there
is improvement in one indicator and worse conditions for the other), the orderings
are two, depending if priority is given to the economy or to nature. The findings are
that 30% of countries follow green growth paths, 50% weakly decouple their emissions from activity (emissions increase less than GDP), and 20% decouple expansively (their emissions increase more than GDP). There is almost difference between
ranking countries giving priority to growth and prioritizing nature. Argentina ranks
approximately in the 60th place among around 150 countries in the database and
is one of the developing countries that weakly decoupled carbon emissions from
economic activity in the period under study.
Keywords Carbon emissions · Decoupling indicators · Degrowth · Green growth ·
A-growth · Sustainable development
Introduction
As it is well known, the Paris Agreement (PA) main objective is to keep the average
increase of global temperature at least below 2 °C with respect to pre-industrial levels
by the end of the century in order to avoid massive damages due to climate change.
Several research groups analyze the gap between the emissions levels needed to
honor that goal and the Parties’ climate policies. They conclude that the attainment
M. Conte Grand (B)
Department of Economics, Universidad del CEMA, Av. Córdoba 374, C1054AAP Ciudad
Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina
e-mail: mcg@ucema.edu.ar
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. E. Belfiori and M. J. Rabassa, (eds.) The Economics of Climate Change
in Argentina, The Latin American Studies Book Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62252-7_4
61
and Economic Growth Decoupling
Mariana Conte Grand
Abstract The main purpose of this chapter is to analyze decoupling between carbon
emissions and economic activity for the different countries in the world within the
1990–2012 period. We qualify decoupling cases. Countries are ranked from those
that decrease emissions while expanding activity (strong decoupling) to those that
augment their greenhouse gases and are in recession (strong negative decoupling).
For the cases in which there exists a conflict between growth and emissions (there
is improvement in one indicator and worse conditions for the other), the orderings
are two, depending if priority is given to the economy or to nature. The findings are
that 30% of countries follow green growth paths, 50% weakly decouple their emissions from activity (emissions increase less than GDP), and 20% decouple expansively (their emissions increase more than GDP). There is almost difference between
ranking countries giving priority to growth and prioritizing nature. Argentina ranks
approximately in the 60th place among around 150 countries in the database and
is one of the developing countries that weakly decoupled carbon emissions from
economic activity in the period under study.
Keywords Carbon emissions · Decoupling indicators · Degrowth · Green growth ·
A-growth · Sustainable development
Introduction
As it is well known, the Paris Agreement (PA) main objective is to keep the average
increase of global temperature at least below 2 °C with respect to pre-industrial levels
by the end of the century in order to avoid massive damages due to climate change.
Several research groups analyze the gap between the emissions levels needed to
honor that goal and the Parties’ climate policies. They conclude that the attainment
M. Conte Grand (B)
Department of Economics, Universidad del CEMA, Av. Córdoba 374, C1054AAP Ciudad
Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina
e-mail: mcg@ucema.edu.ar
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. E. Belfiori and M. J. Rabassa, (eds.) The Economics of Climate Change
in Argentina, The Latin American Studies Book Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62252-7_4
61