Drivers of decoupling economic growth from carbon emission – an empirical analysis of 192 countries using decoupling model and decomposition method

Abstract

All countries are committed to tackle global warming whatever the economic development level. However, governments are hesitant to take aggressive actions to cut carbon emissions without breakthroughs in decoupling economic growth from carbon emissions if they have to pay the economic loss price. Thus developing and implementing more aggressive and efficient Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) of the Paris Agreement requires a better understanding of the possibility to decouple carbon emissions from economic growth. This study explores global and regional decoupling trends and further investigates the decoupling effects using the upgraded data. The results demonstrate that decoupling states of developed countries mostly converged on stable weak decoupling and switching to the strong decoupling status. Most developing countries did not show a clear decoupling state. Affluence level was the key offsetting effect of decoupling process, while energy intensity was the most significant effect to promote the decoupling process. Also, declines of energy intensity drove developed countries to strong decoupling state. Nonetheless, economic growth level dominated the decoupling process in developing countries, by contrast, there was no significant decreasing trend of energy intensity in these countries. These findings have feasible policy implications for implementing the INDCs.