Abstract

As the European Union declares its ambition to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, it is more than important to monitor and analyse developments in greenhouse gas emissions in individual sectors, including transport. The paper aims to assess the relationship between transport-related greenhouse gas emissions and the economic growth of the EU countries using the decoupling method. The results indicate that the countries achieved different stages of decoupling within the individual monitored periods, with relative decoupling (55%) and absolute decoupling (34%) being the most common. However, in the long run (20 year study period 1997-2017), only 8 countries achieved absolute (strong) decoupling, which does not seem to be sufficient in the pursuit of the EU´s ambitious climate mitigation targets.