Yet over the past decade a growing number of countries—33 by The Economist’s count, home to over 1bn people—have managed to increase their gdp while reducing their emissions. After a peak in 2007 America reduced its territorial emissions from 6.13bn tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent to 5.26bn before the pandemic. And that is not because Americans are simply importing their toys and electronics from dirtier places. Strikingly, consumption emissions, which include a measure of the carbon embedded in imports, have fallen by 15% over the same period.
Decoupling is largely a result of two big shifts. One is the changing structure of economies. As countries became richer they expanded their service sectors, which use less energy than manufacturing. In Britain, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, four-fifths of output is now generated by accountants, shop assistants and other service workers. Even in Germany, famed for its industrial prowess, manufacturing’s share of gdp is falling. That has reduced the energy intensity of growth.
Second, imports are getting greener. In the decade after the financial crisis, China’s export sector decarbonised faster than the rest of its economy. This has helped reduce the total carbon footprint of rich countries. Furthermore, manufacturing is shifting out of China, which is more polluting, per dollar of GDp, than India or Indonesia.
This decoupling is unambiguously good news. But, with the link unbroken in many poorer countries, it has not been enough to reduce the pace of increase in global emissions. The task is therefore to speed up decoupling. That will not only demonstrate that tackling climate change and improving living standards can go together; it will also allow poorer parts of the world to use more of the remaining global carbon budget to get richer.