The diagram above is from "World Economic Situation and Prospects 2016" published by the UN. On the face of it, this provides some hope about the state of decoupling of carbon emissions from per capita GDP. If sufficient decoupling can be achieved, then an amount of aggregate global GDP growth could be achieved while keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
However, there is one aspect of this which is of some concern. There is a nagging question on my mind. What if the reduction in per capita carbon emissions in high-GDP countries is largely achieved by 'exporting' carbon emissions, ie by consuming products and services imported from parts of the world which have much higher per capita carbon emissions? If this was the case, then, all other things being equal, it wouldn't be possible for all countries to be moved, over the years and decades, from bottom left of the diagram to the bottom right. This is because there wouldn't be any countries remaining in the bottom left to "export" carbon emissions to. I'd be happy if anyone can point me in the direction of evidence that can put my mind at rest on this point. And perhaps one of the most important questions following on from that is: "what would be the distribution of countries on the above curve at a sustainable equilibrium, and would that equilibrium be consistent with operating within sustainable and safe planetary limits (as per the Oxfam sustainability "doughnut" model)?"
2 Comments
17/12/2016 09:40:23 pm
Several of my pieces on the decoupling hypothesis here https://steadystatemanchester.net/?s=decoupling
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17/12/2016 09:44:31 pm
Moreover, that fitted curve is very suspect: just look at the scatter.
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