As long as economic growth is a major political goal, decoupling growth from resource use and emissions is a prerequisite for a sustainable net-zero emissions future. However, empirical evidence for absolute decoupling, i.e., decreasing resource use and emissions at the required scale despite continued economic growth, is scarce and scattered across different research streams. In this two-part systematic review, we assess how and to what extent decoupling has been observed and what can be learnt for addressing the sustainability and climate crisis. Based on a transparent approach, we systematically identify and screen more than 11,500 scientific papers, eventually analyzing full texts of 835 empirical studies on the relationship between economic growth (GDP), resource use (materials and energy) and greenhouse gas emissions. Part I of the review examines how decoupling has been investigated across three research streams: energy, materials and energy, and emissions. Part II synthesizes the empirical evidence and policy implications (Haberl et al. part II, in review). In part I, we examine the topical, temporal and geographical scopes, methods of analysis, institutional networks and prevalent conceptual angles. We find that in this rapidly growing literature, the vast majority of studies – decomposition, 'causality' and Environmental Kuznets Curve analysis – approach the topic from a statistical-econometric point of view, while hardly acknowledging thermodynamic principles on the role of energy and materials for socio-economic activities. A potentially fundamental incompatibility between economic growth and systemic societal changes to address the climate crisis is rarely considered. We conclude that the existing wealth of empirical evidence merits braver conceptual advances than we have seen thus far. Future work should focus on comprehensive multi-indicator long-term analyses, conceptually grounded on the fundamental biophysical basis of socio-economic activities, incorporating the role of global supply chains as well as the wider societal role and preconditions of economic growth.

中文翻译：

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对 GDP、资源使用和温室气体排放脱钩的证据的系统回顾，第一部分：文献计量和概念图

只要经济增长是一个主要的政治目标，将增长与资源使用和排放脱钩就是可持续净零排放未来的先决条件。然而，绝对脱钩的经验证据，即在经济持续增长的情况下，以所需规模减少资源使用和排放，是稀缺的，并且分散在不同的研究流中。在这个由两部分组成的系统评价中，我们评估了脱钩的观察方式和程度，以及在解决可持续性和气候危机方面可以学到什么。基于透明的方法，我们系统地识别和筛选了 11,500 多篇科学论文，最终分析了 835 篇关于经济增长（GDP）、资源利用（材料和能源）与温室气体排放之间关系的实证研究的全文。评论的第一部分研究了如何在三个研究流中研究脱钩：能源、材料和能源以及排放。第二部分综合了经验证据和政策影响（Haberl 等人，第二部分，回顾中）。在第一部分，我们考察了主题、时间和地理范围、分析方法、制度网络和流行的概念角度。我们发现，在这些快速增长的文献中，绝大多数研究——分解、“因果关系”和环境库兹涅茨曲线分析——都是从统计计量经济学的角度来探讨这个话题的，而几乎没有承认关于能量和材料作用的热力学原理用于社会经济活动。很少考虑经济增长与应对气候危机的系统性社会变革之间潜在的根本不兼容。我们得出结论，现有的大量经验证据值得比我们迄今为止看到的更勇敢的概念进步。未来的工作应侧重于全面的多指标长期分析，在概念上基于社会经济活动的基本生物物理基础，结合全球供应链的作用以及更广泛的社会作用和经济增长的先决条件。