Economic growth has been linked to rising emissions for decades. Now, the ‘opposite is happening’

An increasing number of countries are slashing CO2 emissions while their economies continue to grow, debunking decades of climate-blocking progress.

A new report from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit(ECIU) has analysed 113 countries, representing more than 97 per cent of global GDP and 93 per cent of global emissions.

Using the latest 2025 Global Carbon Budget data, and a more detailed classification system than previous studies, researchers found a “striking shift” is occurring beneath the surface, as decoupling becomes the “norm, not the exception”.

What is decoupling?

Emissions decoupling refers to the extent to which an economy can grow without increasing its carbon emissions. It can be broken down into three categories.

Absolute recoupling, which researchers describe as the optimum outcome, is when emissions fall alongside positive economic growth. Relative decoupling occurs when emissions rise but more slowly than GDP.

On the other end of the spectrum is absolute recoupling, where emissions rise while GDP falls. The report argues that this is rare but can appear during “periods of acute economic stress” such as during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that whether absolute decoupling can be achieved at a global scale is "controversial", breaking the link between GDP and CO2 is essential for achieving climate goals as outlined by theParis Agreement.

The report acknowledges that using decoupling as a metric of progress on climate action does come with limitations.

Previous analysis has observed cases of decoupling that have been temporary or sensitive to whether emissions are measured on a territorial (emissions released within a country’s geographical border) or consumption basis, which also accounts for emissions from imported goods.

How are reduced emissions impacting economic growth?

The report found “widespread” decoupling across Europe, North America, South America and Africa, with many emerging economies making “significant turnarounds” – moving from emissions rising faster than their GDP to absolute decoupling.

Now, 92 per cent of global GDP and 89 per cent of global emissions are in economies that have either relatively or absolutely decoupled. This is up from 77 per cent for both in the decade before the Paris Agreement (2006 to 2015).

Between 2015 and 2023, countries representing almost half (46 per cent) of global GDP absolutely decoupled, growing their economies while cutting emissions. This marks a 38 per cent increase compared to the pre-Paris Agreement period.

Researchers put each country into one of three categories: ‘consistent decouplers’, who absolutely decoupled in both 2006 to 2015 and 2015 to 2023 and ‘improvers’, who didn’t absolutely decouple in the pre-Paris period but did in 2015-2023.

‘Reversals’ were classed as countries that absolutely decoupled from 2006 to 2015 but no longer did during the 2015 to 2023 period.

Where does Europe stand?

A majority of European countries were ranked as consistent decouplers, including Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Estonia, Finland, France, the UK, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Sweden.

These results used consumption-based emissions to address concerns that advanced economies are “off-shoring” their emissions by outsourcing carbon-intensive production to developing nations.

Belarus, Switzerland, Greece, Italy and Portugal were categorised as improvers, while Lithuania, Latvia and Slovenia were listed as reversals.

Some of the largest proportional emissions reductions were recorded in Western Europe, including Norway, Switzerland and the UK.

‘Decoupling is now the norm’

“We’re sometimes told that the world can’t cut emissions without cutting growth,” says John Lang, one of the report authors and Net Zero Tracker Lead at ECIU.

“The opposite is happening. Decoupling is now the norm, not the exception, and the share of the global economy that is decoupling emissions in an absolute sense is steadily increasing.”

Land acknowledges that global CO2 emissions are continuing to rise, albeit at a far slower rate than 10 years ago. However, he argues that the “structural shift is unmistakable”.

Gareth Redmond-King of ECIU also welcomed the findings, describing the momentum built by the Paris Agreement as unstoppable.

“More people are employed globally in clean energy than fossil fuels, whilst at home the net zero industries grow three times faster than the economy as a whole,” he adds.

As the threat of climate change accelerates, Redmond-King warns that net zero remains the “only solution to halting ever more costly and dangerous impacts.”