Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Correspondence
  • Published:

Asymmetric effects of economic growth and decline on CO2 emissions

Nature Climate Change volume 2, pages 762–764 (2012)Cite this article

Subjects

To the Editor

Estimating the trajectory of CO2 emissions, an important part of planning for climate change mitigation and adaptation, depends in part on understanding how these emissions are influenced by the economy. Although researchers have developed sophisticated models of the connections between the economy and CO2 emissions, prominently used modelling approaches implicitly assume that the effect on emissions of declining GDP per capita is symmetrical with the effect of growth in GDP per capita1,2. Here, analysing available data from 1960 to 2008 (see Methods), I find that in years where GDP per capita shrinks, CO2 emissions per capita do not decline in equal proportion to the amount by which they increase with economic growth. One important implication of this finding is that CO2 emissions depend not only on the size of the economy, but also on the pattern of growth and decline that led to that size.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Estimated effect of annual growth in GDP per capita on growth in CO2 emissions per capita.

References

  1. Shi, A. Ecol. Econ. 44, 29–42 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Jorgenson, A. K. & Clark, B. Am. J. Sociol. 118, 1–44 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. York, R. Social Problems 55, 370–390 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Peters, G. P. et al. Nature Clim. Change 2, 2–4 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Jotzo, F. et al. Nature Clim. Change 2, 213–214 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. World Development Indicators. Accessed 14 May (World Bank, 2012); available at http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Environmental Studies Program, University of Oregon, Eugene, 97403, Oregon, USA

    Richard York

Authors
  1. Richard York
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Richard York.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Information (PDF 239 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

York, R. Asymmetric effects of economic growth and decline on CO2 emissions. Nature Clim Change 2, 762–764 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1699

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1699

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing
pFad - Phonifier reborn

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


Alternative Proxies:

Alternative Proxy

pFad Proxy

pFad v3 Proxy

pFad v4 Proxy