Explaining events of strong decoupling from CO2 and NOx emissions in the OECD 1994–2016

Abstract

Decoupling economic growth from emissions is vital to achieve the environmental targets postulated by the Paris agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals. This paper analyzes a set of factors that have the potential to increase the rate of emissions decoupling in 35 OECD countries 1994–2016. It takes on an encompassing approach focusing on emissions decoupling from two pollutant types carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) as well as emissions decoupling from both production-and consumption-based CO2 emissions. Drawing on existing research six key driving factors of emissions decoupling are derived and empirically tested. The paper contributes theoretically by widening the understanding of potential drivers of decoupling, as the six derived factors are not generally analyzed in conjunction. The paper is methodologically innovative in its use of event history models to analyze the significance of the explanatory factors in increasing the rate of emissions decoupling.The paper results in three main findings. One the paper provide empirical evidence of emissions decoupling across all analyzed countries and across all pollutant measures. Two, the paper shows that countries experience recurring instances of decoupling. Third, factors related to green technologies can increase the rate of decoupling both for different emission types and for emissions accounted for as production-and consumption-based.