Rankings for Carbon Emissions and Economic Growth Decoupling
81
period. This means that in the last several years their GDP increased and emissions decreased. This is the ideal decoupling state. But, there are around 50% more
nations that have weakly decoupled (have increased emissions less than economy)
and around 20% are in a worse situation. High-income countries tend to have high
ranks of decoupling while low income ones usually are on the bottom of the list.
In terms of geography, Europe and Central Asia nations are among those that are
ranked better and there are many sub-Sahara African countries in the last places.
The two rankings differ for the order they assign: For example, recessive and
weak negative decoupling scenarios are considered worse in Ordering I than in II
because they imply “degrowth” but emissions that decrease. Since there are only
three countries that followed recessive decoupling paths and no countries under the
weak negative decoupling scenario, the two orderings do not depart substantially
from each other, even if they are conceptually different (one favors economy and the
other nature, when there is conflict).
The way the relationship between emissions’ and GDP changes evolves differently
for each country in the world. This link clearly depends on what and how each of them
produces. Desirable decoupling (strong one) is not automatically attained, it has to
be driven by both market and government policy forces (Stavins 2016). According to
UNEP (2017), there are six areas with alternatives that could be cost-effective to deal
with climate change: solar and wind energy, efficient appliances, efficient passenger
cars, afforestation and stopping deforestation. Policies within those grounds could
imply reductions that would allow fulfilling the Paris Agreement objective. Note that
the relevant policies can be climate or non-climate oriented. For example, mercury
standards at the US discouraged coal-fired electricity and so reduce GHG emissions.
The same happens with motor vehicle standards set because of local air pollution
pollutant, but whose efficiency improvement helps climate.
Argentina’s climate action has considerably improved in the last few years. Nevertheless, it has only weakly decoupled its emissions from GDP. This means that from
1990 to 2012, country’s emissions increase less than GDP. Argentina has compromised an absolute emissions’ target at the Paris Agreement. It has also presented
specific planned reductions for three sectors (energy, transportation and forestry) and
mitigation options in industry and agriculture are under study. Argentina’s decoupling
behavior may improve in the long-run if the effort underway continues.
Acknowledgements The author thanks participants at the Workshop on Climate Change
Economics at Universidad Católica Argentina (April 2018) for their comments, Augustin Shehadi
for his help as a research assistant and UCEMA’s library personnel for handling all the references’
requests.
81
period. This means that in the last several years their GDP increased and emissions decreased. This is the ideal decoupling state. But, there are around 50% more
nations that have weakly decoupled (have increased emissions less than economy)
and around 20% are in a worse situation. High-income countries tend to have high
ranks of decoupling while low income ones usually are on the bottom of the list.
In terms of geography, Europe and Central Asia nations are among those that are
ranked better and there are many sub-Sahara African countries in the last places.
The two rankings differ for the order they assign: For example, recessive and
weak negative decoupling scenarios are considered worse in Ordering I than in II
because they imply “degrowth” but emissions that decrease. Since there are only
three countries that followed recessive decoupling paths and no countries under the
weak negative decoupling scenario, the two orderings do not depart substantially
from each other, even if they are conceptually different (one favors economy and the
other nature, when there is conflict).
The way the relationship between emissions’ and GDP changes evolves differently
for each country in the world. This link clearly depends on what and how each of them
produces. Desirable decoupling (strong one) is not automatically attained, it has to
be driven by both market and government policy forces (Stavins 2016). According to
UNEP (2017), there are six areas with alternatives that could be cost-effective to deal
with climate change: solar and wind energy, efficient appliances, efficient passenger
cars, afforestation and stopping deforestation. Policies within those grounds could
imply reductions that would allow fulfilling the Paris Agreement objective. Note that
the relevant policies can be climate or non-climate oriented. For example, mercury
standards at the US discouraged coal-fired electricity and so reduce GHG emissions.
The same happens with motor vehicle standards set because of local air pollution
pollutant, but whose efficiency improvement helps climate.
Argentina’s climate action has considerably improved in the last few years. Nevertheless, it has only weakly decoupled its emissions from GDP. This means that from
1990 to 2012, country’s emissions increase less than GDP. Argentina has compromised an absolute emissions’ target at the Paris Agreement. It has also presented
specific planned reductions for three sectors (energy, transportation and forestry) and
mitigation options in industry and agriculture are under study. Argentina’s decoupling
behavior may improve in the long-run if the effort underway continues.
Acknowledgements The author thanks participants at the Workshop on Climate Change
Economics at Universidad Católica Argentina (April 2018) for their comments, Augustin Shehadi
for his help as a research assistant and UCEMA’s library personnel for handling all the references’
requests.