The Weakening Connection Between GDP and Pollution

The article (linked below) states that despite the rise in both GDP and carbon dioxide emissions in 2022, the two were not as closely tied as they usually are. Essentially, GDP increased, and carbon emissions increased by an amount smaller than what is usually associated a rise in GDP. Vox then goes on to describe various legislation and promises by the government to lower carbon emissions, as well as describing the increase in use of renewable sources for energy. It ends with a statement about how carbon emissions are looking better, but it will take continued dedication to decrease them.

While I do agree that slowing the increase of carbon emissions is a good sign, the article also made me think about how we decide to measure our impact on the environment. To my knowledge, we don't have a "deforestation index" that we regularly compare to GDP, which I feel would be important to combine with carbon emissions because it's decreasing a way to take carbon dioxide out of the air. It would also probably be connected to GDP because of how frequently we use wood for things like furniture, buildings, paper, etc that it would similarly rise when GDP rises. On top of that, there isn't much focus on other kinds of pollution like littering or industrial wastes. So while the article implies that GDP growth is starting to become disconnection from pollution, I think we need to look further into the historical impacts on the environment and how they relate to GDP (as well as their current levels) before we make that call.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/science-and-health/23547051/greenhouse-gas-emissions-2022-increase-inflation-gas-price-climate-change-gdp