Economic Decline Not Enough to Reduce Planet-Warming Emissions

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A new analysis of data from 1960 to 2008 indicates during economic decline carbon dioxide emissions decline at about half the rate at which they grow when an economy is booming. (Image credit: Nicolle Rager Fuller, National Science Foundation)

Nations hoping to curb global warming face a quandary: Economic growth means more planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions.

On the flip side, economic decline means a drop in greenhouse gas emissions as consumers tighten their belts, factories slow down and less money is spent.

"In a sense, economic decline only undoes a little more than half of the carbon dioxide emissions that economic growth adds,” said Richard York, a professor of sociology and environmental studies at the University of Oregon who conducted this study.

This result indicates that a country's history — not just its current economic state — influences the amount of carbon dioxide it is pumping out. 

For example, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, economic collapse put some post-Soviet nations on par with some sub-Saharan African nations. While these post-Soviet nations did see their emissions drop, they did not fall as low as emissions in poor nations, like some sub-Saharan countries that had never industrialized, York said. [8 Ways Global Warming Is Already Changing the World]

York has a theory why economic decline does not reverse the gains in carbon dioxide that accompany economic development. Countries in decline, such as the post-Soviet nations, still have the infrastructure and durable goods — including roads, factories, cars and energy-intensive homes — that come with economic development. People use these things less, but they still contribute emissions.

This difference in emissions' change during decline versus growth may help explain why emissions do not appear to have declined as much as expected as a result of the global fiscal crisis that began in 2007; however, not all economic and environmental data for this period is in yet, he said.

York identified the asymmetry by looking at changes in gross domestic product, the value of all goods and services produced by a country, for more than 150 nations from 1960 to 2008.

He separated out the positive change, or economic growth, from the negative change, or decline, for all of the countries, and looked to see how that compared with the changes in carbon dioxide at the same time.

York's work was published online in the journal Nature Climate Change today (Oct. 7).

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Wynne Parry
Wynne Parry
Wynne was a reporter at The Stamford Advocate. She has interned at Discover magazine and has freelanced for The New York Times and Scientific American's web site. She has a masters in journalism from Columbia University and a bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Utah.