Green growth: 30 percent of regions worldwide achieve economic growth while reducing carbon emissions

More and more regions around the globe combine economic growth with reducing carbon emissions. Maria Zioga, our PECan member based at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and her colleagues have published a new study highlighting the vital role of subnational climate actions in decoupling economic growth from CO2 emissions. The analysis of data from 1,500 regions over the past 30 years shows that 30 percent have managed to lower their carbon emissions while continuing to thrive economically. While this accelerating trend marks significant progress towards achieving the Paris Climate Agreement, the authors caution that the current pace of decoupling is insufficient to meet the global climate target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Read the full research article here:

Maria Zioga, Maximilian Kotz, Anders Levermann (2024): Observed carbon decoupling of subnational production insufficient for net-zero goal by 2050.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2411419121