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Again and again: supposed evidence for decoupling emissions from growth is not what it seems

March 30, 2016

Again and again: supposed evidence for decoupling emissions from growth is not what it seems

It can be difficult to form a view of what’s really going on in our atmosphere, given the amount of information and of contradictory claims. This piece concerns recent reports on global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and levels. On 16th March, a Guardian headline over an article by John Vidal said: Surge in renewable energy stalls world greenhouse gas emissions

That sounds good, doesn’t it. But at best, the claim is only partly true. The article is actually about energy-related emissions. . Now this is clear enough if you read the article carefully, “Preliminary data for 2015 from the International Energy Agency (IEA) showed that carbon dioxide emissions from the energy sector have levelled off at 32.1bn tonnes”.

Yet the previous sentence says: “Falling coal use in China and the US and a worldwide shift towards renewable energy have kept greenhouse gas emissions level for a second year running, one of the world’s leading energy analysts has said.” And here is the clue: the “leading energy analyst” is none other than Fatih Birol, Director (and former chief economist) at the International Energy Agency. The IEA was terribly slow in waking up to the promise of renewables and still maintains a thoroughly orthodox position on the relationship between economic growth and emissions.

The article on the IEA website that the Guardian is referring to has the headline:
“Decoupling of global emissions and economic growth confirmed”, although the subheading again makes it clear that it was “energy-related emissions of CO2 [that] stalled”. And Birol is quoted as saying: “Coming just a few months after the landmark COP21 agreement in Paris, this is yet another boost to the global fight against climate change.” This would indeed be good news, but let’s take a look at the data.

Here is the IEA graph:

IEA energy emissions 160316_CO2_gr

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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