Tianning Zhao
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tianning-zhao.bsky.social
Tianning Zhao
@tianning-zhao.bsky.social
PhD Candidate in Economics🇮🇪
Climat change-Decarbonization-Degrowth
I want to share my new publication with you “Ireland's Carbon Emission Trends and Degrowth Opportunities: Based on Modified Tapio - LMDI Model”it pointed out the important role of material consumption and selective degrowth approach should be taken into account. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
October 23, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Reposted by Tianning Zhao
Our new journal paper has hit the front pages and got wide coverage on the airwaves this morning.

The paper critically assesses “temperature neutrality” as a basis for Ireland’s long-term climate target. We find it amounts to backsliding on climate ambition and locks in food system unfairness.
August 12, 2025 at 7:05 AM
We need to take into account the opportunity cost of technological progress, also of economic growth!
July 16, 2025 at 5:27 AM
Even though there has been a relative decoupling between economic growth and carbon emissions in some countries in the Global North, this has not occurred on a global scale. What we need is not just a relative decoupling, but an absolute decoupling, that is, an absolute reduction in carbon emissions
July 14, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Neo-classical economics always regards economic growth as the top priority. People tend to believe that a larger pie is easier to divide than a smaller one. The consequence of this "growth worship" is that people fail to notice the widening gap between what they get and what others get.
No matter how often I see this data, I always find it shocking. Of all the massive growth in output produced by the world's workers since 1980, more than half of it has been captured by the richest 1%. This is what happens when capital controls production.
June 28, 2025 at 3:21 AM
Reposted by Tianning Zhao
The graph is at globalinequality.org/global-incom..., where you can also explore other metrics: pre-tax income, post-tax income, wealth, all in either MER or PPP, with data from the excellent World Inequality Database.
Global Income Inequality - Global Inequality
globalinequality.org
June 24, 2025 at 1:28 PM
I’ve been looking into Ireland’s investment share by government and businesses in the green transition, and the numbers are truly alarming.
June 12, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Yesterday I delivered a pre of Ireland’s emission trends and degrowth opportunity, the main sight is the technological progress could help the weak decoupling but the economy and population scale could hinder the strong decoupling. Many thanks for this opportunity to show my research! @ucc.ie
June 7, 2025 at 4:56 PM
The increase of clean energy use is likely to be used to meet the growing energy consumption rather than replace the original fossil energy. It should be alert about whether the rate of increase in energy demand exceeds the rate of clean energy replacing fossil energy.
I’m sorry to be such a pessimist, but I don’t see much to celebrate in Irish energy trends in 2024, despite headlines celebrating that energy-related GHG emissions fell.

www.seai.ie/data-and-ins...
National Energy Balance
The National Energy Balance presents detailed information on how and where energy is used in Ireland for a given year. Read more.
www.seai.ie
May 24, 2025 at 11:28 PM
Hi all!My name is Tianning Zhao, a PhD student in @ucc.ie and I hold MSc in ecological economics from @envleeds.bsky.social .
My research focus on ecological economics, energy economics and degrowth🌍.
I hope to talk more with you all here! Let’s fight for our sustainable future.
May 14, 2025 at 10:34 AM