"The once-rigid link between economic growth and carbon emissions is breaking across the vast majority of the world, according to a recently released study.

Countries representing 92% of the global economy have now decoupled consumption-based carbon emissions and GDP expansion, according to the report by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU).

Using the latest Global Carbon Budget data, it finds that decoupling is now the norm across advanced economies, with 46% of global GDP in countries that have expanded their economies while cutting emissions, including Brazil, Colombia and Egypt. The most pronounced decouplings occurred in the UK, Norway and Switzerland".

The shift away from fossil fuels, the main contributors to carbon emissions, is becoming the norm.

Yes, this is getting quite a run in the usual left-leaning press. Remarkably the headline in the Guardian is precisely the same as WTF's header.... what are the chances?

What they somehow fail to note is that the people behind this are primarily funded by various pro-renewables groups. If a pro-oil report comes out, they trip over themselves to work out who was behind the funding, but not this occasion. Just an oversight I guess!!

As to the substance.... well they utterly miss the issue behind economic growth which they equate to GDP growth, apparently unaware that they aren't really the same thing.

They assert that economic growth was linked to CO2 emission growth. But that just ain't so. Economic growth is and always has been linked to the growth in energy utilisation. That the improvement in economic output accompanied by an increase in CO2 emissions isn't even close to showing that an increase in CO2 emissions caused the economic growth, which is their assertion.

The trick for economies the world over is finding the best way to create and/or utilise energy. In the past that was solely fossil fuels. Now there are other options although fossil fuels remain the primary source of energy. Whatismore, the efficient use of fossil fuels has improved over the past century such that each unit of GSP requires less energy input and therefore less emissions.

But these people put it all down to altruistic moves to renewables. In fact, in most cases, countries simply move to the most efficient energy system available to them, irrespective of emission considerations. And those countries that don't, such as Australia and western Europe are paying the price of putting emission levels ahead of energy efficiency

We are told lots of lies these days by politicians, “experts” and the media. Unfortunately, lots of those lies are spread as truth here by posters who have no particular qualifications themselves, but who latch on to any ‘references’ that suit their ideology. All they are doing is repeating the opinions of someone else, which might be the truth, or they might be utter tosh.

There are so many conflicting “expert” opinions from people, it is impossible for the average person to know who is right and who is wrong.

The ECIU, used here, is just another NGO/NFP outfit in the UK made up of a couple of MPs, a farmer, a woman from a women' s institute, a professor of ‘international energy and climate change policy’ (never heard of that discipline before), an emeritus professor of zoology, a member of the House of Lords, a professor of human health and performance, and a former rear admiral.

Only one of them with a very iffy-sounding connection to anything like climate.

Why would we take notice of that lot?

I will stick with the likes of Australia's IPA's Adam Creighton and his article of yesterday, ‘The net-zero zealots are fading into history’. The zealots remind him of Homer Simpson with their “embarrassing approach our nation’s policy and corporate elites have taken by enthusiastically backing net zero”.

Creighton describes AEMO's “fantasy prediction” about Australia becoming a “renewable energy superpower” as the latest example of a “rhetorical retreat before the fall”.

Rio Tinto has reduced its ‘decarbonisation’ program from $7.5 billion to less than $2 billion.

The Net Zero Banking Alliance has collapsed.

Cop 30 was a “fizzer”.

The US is now regarded as “insufficient” on the climate madness, joining Russia, Saudi Arabia, Argentina and “six others”; Canada, China, India and “three others” are “highly insufficient”.

Creighton is expecting more Homer Simpsons to fade away in coming months. The wheels are coming off.

The SA media is adding to the lies by describing normal summer temperatures as a "heatwave". This 82 year old still finished his daily walk in 40 degrees yesterday, and the forecast for today is down to 28 degrees.

That's a another thing about climate zealots who yap about facts. There are years of climate/temperature facts on record, but they ignore them to scare a public that doesn't seem to remember what happened a year before, let alone what they have experienced their entire lives.

NFI,

You're beginning to give me an inkling of why disasters like Venezuela happen. So your cult leader tells you that power prices will go down and they go up. Now the GDP is "decoupled" from carbon? Would you jump off a cliff if cult leader Albo told you that the updraft would make you fly?

Cheap energy has a strong correlation with development and prosperity. Socialism and other cults do not. If you, Toto and Johnny Bullsheet were interested in ideas and argument, I would suggest listening to this energy economist instead of the grifters and your cultist propaganda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHJVeIbZZJE

WTF,

Good news on the home front, with the take up of home solar batteries exceeding all expectations. The Federal government is releasing an extra $5 billion in subsidies over 4 years, on top of the $2.3 billion that has been taken up in the first 6 months of the scheme.

"This 82 year old still finished his daily walk in 40 degrees yesterday"
Only mad dogs, and Englishmen go out in the noon day sun.

Paul,

Let me explain what obviously went over your head. This wasn't a case of unexpectedly large numbers taking up the scheme but instead a case of a smallish number recognising that the government had screwed up and taking advantage of that.

The original idea was that people would get subsidised to buy 10kwh batteries. But the badly designed scheme meant that it was almost as cheap for the customers to buy the much more expensive 50kwh batteries with the government picking up the extra costs. So the consumers got a system they'd never be able to use, the installers got to oversell their product and the taxpayers was left holding the bag.

The government had this scheme that was supposed to run through to 2030 but, due to their usual screw-ups spent the entire budget in six months.

Now, to try to save face and cover up their errors, they do what they always do.... throw more taxpayer money at it.

So a scheme that was targeted to run for 5 years runs out of money within six months. Remember, these are the same bozos who think they know what our emissions are going to be in 2035 and then in 2050. They can't even work out what's going to happen in six months let alone a decade or a quarter-century.

But their faithful flying-monkeys will keep the faith if not their money.

The federal incentive, which offers a discount of roughly 30% (up to $372 per kWh) on the upfront cost of battery systems, has seen rapid adoption that significantly exceeded initial government and industry expectations. Approximately 163,016 Australian households have installed a solar battery as of December 2025, that's a 1,000 installations a day since July. FANTASTIC!

I'll do the calculation you won't (or can't).

Let's pretend the government figures are right and there were an extra 160,000 installations. The total budget was $2.5 Billion. (That's Billion, not Million - but what's a few zeros heh? Its only taxpayer money)

So $2.5billion divided by 160,000 mean each subsidised installation got over $15,000 each on average. And the subsidy was $375 per KwH.

So $15,000 divided by $375 mean each subsidised installation on average got a 40KwH battery.

But the average Australian home doesn't use or need anywhere near that capacity. So it was a massive waste caused by a hopelessly badly designed government boondoggle.

And now they are trying to convince the easily confused (no names mind you but Paul is in that cohort) that it was a great success instead of a great waste. If it was so good, why are they now suddenly changing the rules?

But the anxiously gullible will remain confused.

mhaze,

None of your commentary actually touches the claim being discussed: that most of the world has now empirically decoupled GDP growth from carbon emissions. The datasets behind this come from the Global Carbon Budget, national inventories, and the IEA - not from vibes, NGOs, or Guardian headlines.

You can dislike the ECIU’s funding all you like, but unless you can show that the underlying emissions and GDP figures are wrong, the funding point is just a deflection. The numbers exist independently of whoever happened to summarise them.

Your argument boils down to two points:

1. Economic growth requires energy.
2. Therefore emissions can’t decouple from GDP.

Point 1 is obvious. Point 2 simply doesn’t follow. Energy use and emissions are no longer welded together in the way they were 30–40 years ago. Countries are:

- Holding energy demand roughly steady while GDP rises
- Electrifying industry and transport
- Increasing the share of low-emissions energy
- Improving efficiency across buildings, vehicles, and manufacturing

Those trends produce exactly the pattern observed: rising output, falling emissions. That isn’t ideology. It’s accounting.

And none of this is contradicted by your battery digression. Even if every claim you made about the rebate scheme were true, it would still be irrelevant to whether the UK, Norway, Switzerland, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt and most advanced economies have grown their GDP while reducing territorial and consumption-based emissions.

If you want to challenge the decoupling evidence, you need to do one of the following:

- Show that the Global Carbon Budget figures are wrong
- Show that the GDP data is wrong
- Demonstrate that the emissions reductions are artefacts of outsourcing rather than real
- Present counter-examples at scale

So far, you’ve done none of these. You’ve offered a complaint about one Australian policy design and treated it as if it disproves global datasets.

If you want to discuss the actual evidence, I’m happy to. If not, the rest is just scenery.

JD,

You utterly missed my point. (I should put that phrase on one of my function keys since I seem to use it so often in regards to your posts).

My point was that economic growth is linked to energy growth not emissions growth. And criteria surrounding energy growth have changed in the last 5 decades. There has been a greater amount of renewables. But fossil fuels remain dominant. Even so, the efficiency of fossil fuel has continued to improve, as it has for the last 2 centuries. So emission levels fall primarily because fossil fuels are used more efficaciously and fewer emissions from them are required to create each unit of economic growth.

The point therefore is that the phenomena of falling emissions and rising economic output would have occurred and has occurred quite apart from the hysteria against CO2 or the lukewarm world-wide take up of renewables.

As to the batteries issue.... Paul raised it so not my battery digression. Do try to keep up.

mhaze,

No one has "missed" your point. We’ve heard it clearly. It just doesn’t do the work you think it does.

Yes, economic growth has historically tracked energy use, not emissions per se. That is uncontroversial. But your next step is where the argument fails: you assert that efficiency gains in fossil fuels alone would have delivered the observed decoupling regardless of climate policy or renewables.

The empirical record does not support that.

Efficiency improvements have been occurring for over a century, as you note. Yet for most of that time, emissions still rose with GDP, because efficiency gains were consistently outpaced by scale and demand. If fossil efficiency alone were sufficient to produce sustained absolute decoupling, we would have seen it long before the last two decades.

What changed in the past 30-40 years is not merely marginal efficiency, but:

- Structural electrification of economies
- Fuel switching away from coal in power generation
- Rapid growth in zero-emissions generation
- Regulatory pressure on high-carbon processes
- Saturation effects in mature economies

That combination is exactly why emissions flatten or fall while GDP rises. Efficiency is part of the story, but not the whole story, and certainly not independent of climate policy.

Your claim that this "would have occurred anyway" is an assertion, not a demonstration. To sustain it, you would need to show comparable absolute decoupling in economies without renewables uptake, fuel switching, or emissions constraints. Those examples are conspicuously absent.

As for renewables being "lukewarm": in electricity generation, they are now the marginal source of new capacity across most advanced economies. That matters more than fossil fuels remaining dominant in legacy stock.

On batteries, whether Paul raised it or not is beside the point. It still has no bearing on whether global decoupling exists, why it occurred, or what the data show.

So we’re back where we started. The phenomenon is real. The data are clear. And efficiency alone does not explain it.

If you think otherwise, show it - with evidence, not insistence.

Oh, and... Do try to keep up.

CO2 levels as measured at Mauna Loa Observatory (Hawaii). (Its not necessarily a perfect way to measure CO2 levels but its the best we've got.)

2000: ~370 ppm (parts per million)
2010: ~390 ppm
2020: ~414 ppm
2023: ~421 ppm
2024: ~424 ppm
2025 (as of mid-year peak in May): ~430 ppm

Tell me again how emissions are falling.

"Yes, economic growth has historically tracked energy use, not emissions per se. That is uncontroversial. "

Oh good. We are now in agreement. Glad you caught up.

"On batteries, whether Paul raised it or not is beside the point. It still has no bearing on whether global decoupling exists,"

Oh, so I guess its lucky I didn't make any such claim then. Yet again telling me how wrong I was to say things I never said.

With pleasure, mhaze.

//Tell me again how emissions are falling.//

You've committed a basic category error.

Mauna Loa measures atmospheric CO2 concentration (a stock), not annual emissions (a flow). Rising concentration does not imply rising emissions, just as a rising bathtub level does not mean the tap is opening wider - it can still be rising even if the inflow is slowing, as long as it exceeds the outflow.

The decoupling claim being discussed is about emissions relative to GDP, not about atmospheric concentration magically falling overnight. Those are different variables on different timescales.

Three points you're conflating:

Emissions are how much CO2 we add each year.

Concentration is the cumulative result of all past emissions, minus what oceans and land absorb.

Even if global emissions plateau or decline, concentrations will keep rising until net emissions approach zero.

That's Climate Science 101, not a gotcha.

And crucially, the claim was never that global emissions have already fallen to zero. It was that many economies have grown GDP while reducing their emissions. Both things can be true simultaneously:

- Some countries cut emissions
- Others are still increasing them
- Global concentration keeps rising because total net emissions remain positive

If you want to dispute decoupling, Mauna Loa data is irrelevant. You would need to show that:

- The countries cited did not reduce emissions
- Or that their GDP figures are wrong
- Or that reductions are purely accounting tricks

Pointing at a global concentration curve does none of that.

You're now arguing against a claim nobody made, using a metric that doesn't measure the thing in question. That's not rebuttal, it's misapplication.

If you want to engage the actual argument, we're back to emissions data by country versus GDP. Otherwise, Mauna Loa will continue doing exactly what physics says it should.

We keeping up now?

Correct, mhaze.

//Yes, economic growth has historically tracked energy use, not emissions per se. That is uncontroversial.//

That premise is widely accepted and I said so explicitly. But it's not the dispute.

The dispute is your next leap: that absolute decoupling would have happened anyway, primarily from fossil-fuel efficiency, regardless of policy or renewables. You still haven't shown that.

//Oh good. We are now in agreement. Glad you caught up.//

We were never "not in agreement" on that premise. You're treating agreement on the easy part as if it concedes your conclusion. It doesn't. The argument is about what changed to produce sustained absolute decoupling in many economies.

//On batteries ... It still has no bearing on whether global decoupling exists,//

That's correct. The battery scheme is not evidence for or against the existence of global or multi-country decoupling. It's a separate topic.

//Oh, so I guess its lucky I didn't make any such claim then.//

You didn't say "batteries disprove decoupling" in those words. Doing so would leave you no room to slink away from the claim.

What you did do was use the battery example to imply broader government incompetence and forecasting failure, in a thread about decoupling and emissions trends. If your point wasn't meant to undermine the decoupling discussion, then fine: it was off-topic noise.

//Yet again telling me how wrong I was to say things I never said.//

No. I'm pointing out that (a) agreement on "energy matters" doesn't establish your conclusion, and (b) the battery tangent doesn't rebut the decoupling evidence. If you want the core claim addressed, it's this one you made earlier:

//The phenomena of falling emissions and rising economic output would have occurred … quite apart from … the take up of renewables.//

That's a strong causal claim. Now support it. Show economies with sustained GDP growth and falling emissions without meaningful fuel switching, low-emissions generation growth, electrification, or policy pressure. Or quantify how much of the observed reductions are attributable to fossil efficiency alone.

Until you do, the "caught up" victory lap is theatre, not argument.

The claim in the report was that the decoupling was due to the take-up of renewables. Hardly surprising that they'd make that claim given they are funded by the renewables boondoggle.

But renewables were only part of the decoupling story, and not the most important part.

"You didn't say "batteries disprove decoupling" in those words. "

Oh ho. We're back to JD's you implied it theme. Make up my views and then claim I didn't say it but still believe it anyway. The batteries sub-thread was a completely off-topic post by Paul which had nowt to do with the decoupling. I merely proved were he was wrong.

No, mhaze.

//The claim in the report was that the decoupling was due to the take-up of renewables.//

The report attributes decoupling to a bundle of structural changes: fuel switching, electrification, efficiency gains, and renewables. It does not claim renewables are the sole cause. You’re flattening a multi-factor explanation into a strawman.

//Hardly surprising that they'd make that claim given they are funded by the renewables boondoggle.//

That’s an insinuation, not an argument. Unless you can show that the emissions or GDP data are wrong, funding sources are irrelevant. The underlying figures come from the Global Carbon Budget and national inventories, not donor press releases.

//But renewables were only part of the decoupling story, and not the most important part.//

A testable claim - finally. Now support it. Quantify how much of the observed absolute decoupling you attribute to:

- fossil-fuel efficiency
- renewables and fuel switching
- electrification
- policy and regulation

//Make up my views and then claim I didn't say it but still believe it anyway.//

That didn’t happen. What was pointed out is that you used the battery example rhetorically to imply broader forecasting or policy incompetence in a thread about decoupling. If that implication wasn’t intended, then the battery posts were simply off-topic.

//The batteries sub-thread was a completely off-topic post by Paul…//

Then we agree. Which means it cannot be used to undermine emissions data, GDP figures, or the existence of decoupling.

//…I merely proved were he was wrong.//

Whether Paul was right or wrong about a subsidy design has no bearing on whether multiple economies have grown GDP while cutting emissions, or on why that occurred.

So we return to your unresolved claim:

“The phenomena of falling emissions and rising economic output would have occurred … quite apart from … the take up of renewables.”

That’s a causal claim. Support it.

Show economies with sustained GDP growth and falling emissions without meaningful fuel switching, low-emissions generation growth, electrification, or policy pressure. Or quantify how much of the observed decoupling is attributable to fossil-fuel efficiency alone.

Until then, disputes over “implication” are mere squirming.

"Which means it cannot be used to undermine emissions data, GDP figures, or the existence of decoupling."

Oh good. Lucky I did make those claims then. Its rather hilarious. You admit I didn't say it and then tell me I shouldn't have said it.

"Show economies with sustained GDP growth and falling emissions without meaningful fuel switching,"

Define meaningful. Because no matter what evidence I show you'll assert it wasn't meaningful and adjust the meaning of meaningful to suit whatever assertions you care to make..

You’re still mischaracterising what was said, mhaze - ironically.

//Lucky I did make those claims then.//

No one said you made those claims. The point was about relevance, not attribution. If the battery discussion was off-topic, then it cannot be used to cast doubt on emissions data, GDP figures, or the existence of decoupling. That’s not telling you what you said; it’s explaining why that line of argument doesn’t advance your case. Those are different things.

//Define meaningful.//

Gladly.

"Meaningful" does not mean "zero renewables" or "no policy at all". It means that the factor in question is large enough to plausibly explain the observed emissions reduction.

In practical, testable terms, "meaningful" includes things like:

- A substantial shift in the electricity mix away from coal toward lower-emissions sources
- Electrification of end uses that materially reduces fossil fuel demand
- Policy or regulatory constraints that change investment or operating decisions
- Structural changes large enough to register in national energy and emissions accounts

By contrast, "not meaningful" would be marginal or incidental changes that are too small to explain sustained, economy-wide emissions declines.

This isn’t an adjustable standard. It’s the same evidentiary standard used in every serious energy or macroeconomic analysis: does the magnitude of the factor plausibly account for the outcome?

So the challenge stands, clearly defined:

- Show economies with sustained GDP growth and falling emissions where fossil-fuel efficiency alone, without substantial fuel switching, electrification, or policy constraint, plausibly explains the reduction.

- Or quantify how much of the observed decoupling is attributable to fossil efficiency, and show that renewables, fuel switching, and policy are secondary.

If you can do that, you’ll have made your case.

If not, complaining about "meaningful" is just another way of avoiding the burden you’ve set for yourself.

"you’ll have made your case."

I've already made my case.

You're just trying to find a form of words which will allow you to claim that what you don't want to be true isn't true. And you've failed.

As to the definition of "meaningful"... you failed the task badly. You see if I showed you actual stats you'd say that no matter the numbers, they weren't meaningful based on whatever criteria you then conjure up. Which is why I wanted it quantified. But all you did was substitute one wishy-washy term with a few others..."material", "substantial".

No matter what the numbers are, you'll assert they weren't substantial enough or material. Not playing.

mhaze,

Simply asserting "I've already made my case" doesn't make it so. What you've done is state a hypothesis without demonstrating it.

Your claim is not modest. You've argued that:

//The phenomena of falling emissions and rising economic output would have occurred … quite apart from … the take up of renewables.//

That is a causal counterfactual. Making it stick requires evidence, not repetition.

On "meaningful", you're now objecting to a problem you created yourself. You asked for quantification, then refused to engage once the criteria were explained. So let's remove all alleged wiggle room and be explicit.

Here is a clear, falsifiable standard:

If fossil-fuel efficiency is the primary driver of absolute decoupling, then you should be able to identify economies where:

1. GDP rose and territorial emissions fell over a sustained period, and
2. Fossil fuels remained dominant in electricity and final energy, and
3. Low-emissions generation (renewables + nuclear) grew by less than, say, 10 percentage points of electricity share over that period, and
4. There were no major climate or energy policies materially constraining emissions.

That is not "wishy-washy". It is concrete, measurable, and drawn directly from national energy and emissions accounts.

If you can produce multiple examples that meet those conditions, then yes - you'll have made your case.

If you can't, then what you've offered so far is not evidence but insistence, followed by a refusal to engage once the claim is pinned down tightly enough to be tested.

//Not playing//

Of course you won't. Not anymore, at least. Not now that you've been cornered and your tricks exposed.

The burden here is simple and unchanged:

either show that fossil-fuel efficiency alone plausibly explains observed absolute decoupling, or concede that renewables, fuel switching, electrification, and policy are doing non-trivial work.

Everything else is just noise around that unanswered question.

"Low-emissions generation (renewables + nuclear) grew by less than, say, 10 percentage points of electricity share over that period, "

Why 10%. See this is what I mean. You pick the criteria that suits your pre-judged wants and then demand that I live by those criteria.

In Australia emissions have fallen. A lot that that is due to renewables (at a monumental cost) but some is due to the uptake of more technologically advanced coal plants like the supercritical (HELE) coal plants which achieve up to 15% better efficiency than older subcritical plants, reducing Co2 per kWh, by a similar margin. Equally the uptake of gas, while still a fossil fuel, reduced overall emissions.

My original point was that "Whatismore, the efficient use of fossil fuels has improved over the past century such that each unit of GSP requires less energy input and therefore less emissions." You haven't laid a glove on that fact. And we both know why.

Why 10%, mhaze?

Because a threshold is required to test your causal claim. You demanded quantification, quantification requires a cut-off.

What you're doing instead is objecting to the existence of any standard that would allow the claim to be tested. If you prefer a different threshold, propose one. What you can't do is insist on quantification and then dismiss every quantified standard as "pre-judged".

//In Australia emissions have fallen… some is due to … HELE coal plants … Equally the uptake of gas …//

None of this is new, and it doesn't rescue your original claim.

Yes:

- HELE coal improves thermal efficiency
- Gas displaces higher-emissions coal
- Both reduce emissions intensity

But those are fuel-switching effects, not "efficiency alone". They're well-documented contributors alongside renewables and policy. You've described part of the standard decoupling explanation, not an alternative to it.

Australia is also a weak example for your argument, because emissions reductions here are recent and modest, electricity decarbonisation has been dominated by renewables growth, and HELE deployment is limited and insufficient to explain economy-wide trends.

You've narrowed from "this would have happened anyway" to "some fossil efficiency helps at the margin".

//My original point was that … each unit of GSP requires less energy input and therefore less emissions.//

No one disputes that. That's been true for over a century.

What you claimed (and still haven't supported) is that absolute decoupling would have occurred regardless of renewables, fuel switching, or policy.

But efficiency improvements alone did not prevent emissions rising with GDP for decades. The historical record is clear. Something additional changed.

//You haven't laid a glove on that fact.//

Because that fact was never in dispute. What's disputed is the leap from "efficiency improves" to "therefore renewables and policy don't matter".

You've retreated from a counterfactual claim about what would have happened anyway to a partial description of mechanisms everyone already accepts.

Until you can show sustained GDP growth with falling emissions explained primarily by fossil efficiency, without substantial low-emissions generation growth or policy pressure, restating efficiency gains doesn't change the conclusion - it just circles it.

"//My original point was that … each unit of GSP requires less energy input and therefore less emissions.//

No one disputes that. That's been true for over a century."

Oh good. Glad you caught on or caught up.

mhaze,

Once again, that point was never the point in dispute. So saying "glad you caught up" doesn't advance your case. It just comes across as limp and performative.

Declining emissions intensity has been acknowledged throughout. What you claimed - and still haven't shown - is that absolute decoupling (GDP rising while total emissions fall) would have occurred anyway, primarily due to fossil-fuel efficiency, regardless of renewables, fuel switching, or policy.

That claim remains unsupported.

Until then, repeating "we agree" on the easy part, while pretending I was slow to catch on, doesn't resolve the hard part - it just avoids it.

"What you claimed - and still haven't shown - is that absolute decoupling (GDP rising while total emissions fall) would have occurred anyway"

No that's just you trying to reframe the discussion away from a losing argument to one you think you can win. My point was that the decline in emissions even as GDP rose was not solely due to renewables which was the claim in the articles WTF relied on, when the decline in emissions per unit of GSP was occurring long before the renewables boondoggle became a thing, and was due in no small part of more efficient ustulation of fossil fuels.

That's a retreat, mhaze, not a clarification.

You originally argued that the observed decoupling would have occurred anyway, driven primarily by fossil-fuel efficiency, and that renewables and climate policy were essentially incidental. That is a strong counterfactual claim. It's the one that's been under discussion.

Now you're saying something much weaker and much less controversial:

- emissions intensity has been falling for a long time
- fossil-fuel efficiency has contributed to that
- renewables are not the sole factor

No one has disputed any of that. It's been acknowledged repeatedly.

But that is not the same as saying renewables and policy are unimportant, nor does it explain why we now see absolute decoupling in many economies when intensity improvements alone failed to stop emissions rising with GDP for decades.

And no, the articles did not claim renewables were the sole cause. They described a multi-factor transition: efficiency, fuel switching, electrification, and low-emissions generation. You've been arguing against a strawman version of that claim throughout.

So let's be clear about where things now stand:

- Declining emissions intensity: agreed
- Fossil efficiency contributes: agreed
- Renewables alone didn't do everything: agreed

What remains unshown is the claim you started with: that the decoupling we now observe would have happened regardless of renewables, fuel switching, or policy.

If that's no longer your position, then fine - we've converged. But if it is still your position, then the burden hasn't changed.

Efficiency improvements long pre-date the period in which absolute decoupling appears. Explaining why the pattern broke when it did still requires more than "efficiency has been improving".

At this point, either you're defending the original counterfactual claim - in which case it still needs evidence - or you're acknowledging that renewables, fuel switching, and policy are doing non-trivial work.

Those are the two options. Everything else is just relabelling the disagreement.