China developing 1.28 bln tons of coal mining capacity
Chinese mines in progress more than half global pipeline
35% of projects in pipeline under construction
Current large-scale capacity is 3.88 mln metric tons/year
China responsible for 70% of coal mine methane emissions

In order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, it is necessary to actively promote a coordinated and balanced relationship between carbon dioxide emissions (CO2e), material footprints (MF) and human development, based on the economic and social development stages of different countries and their material resource endowments.

This study comprehensively evaluated the nexus between CO2e, MF, and human development index (HDI) in 151 countries from 1990 to 2019 based on the modified coupling coordination degree model and the improved decoupling index model.

The results show that, both the global MF per capita and HDI have maintained an increasing trend, and the MF per capita has been increasing significantly faster than the HDI. The trend of CO2e per capita is slowly dropping, with very high HDI countries being the main contributors. Besides, global regional differences in CO2e per capita and MF per capita are still expanding.

Net energy exporting countries with high HDI have advantages to achieve decoupling of CO2 emissions.

Net energy importing countries with low HDI shows a significant coupling trend in material footprints.

The study shows that, as the level of human development continues to rise, humanity has made the leap from intermediate to advanced levels of development. However, the real impacts of unsustainability, like the accelerated depletion of natural resources and the massive emission of greenhouse gases, have also intensified.
In the current context of globalization, although achieving a temporary absolute decoupling between CO2e, MF and HDI may occur frequently, maintaining this trend over the long term remains challenging.

Is Decoupling GDP Growth from Environmental Impact Possible?
Our model demonstrates that growth in GDP ultimately cannot plausibly be decoupled from growth in material and energy use, demonstrating categorically that GDP growth cannot be sustained indefinitely. It is therefore misleading to develop growth-oriented policy around the expectation that decoupling is possible. However, we also note that GDP has been shown to be a poor proxy for societal wellbeing, something it was never designed to measure, and GDP growth is therefore a questionable long-term societal goal in any case. The mounting costs of “uneconomic growth” [43] suggest that the pursuit of decoupling–if it were possible–in order to sustain GDP growth would be a misguided effort.