EKC is true, not outsourcing.
Dr. Noah Smith 21, economics PhD from the University of Michigan, finance professor at Stony Brook University, 9/6/2021, “People are realizing that degrowth is bad,” https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/people-are-realizing-that-degrowth, Cyril Abacus Turner, fearless leader of the MBA philosophy club
2. Past trends are no guarantee of future trends. Until the 70s, for instance, U.S. economic growth was closely correlated with both energy use and carbon emissions; after the 70s, this correlation broke down completely and the lines started moving in opposite directions. Degrowthers present historical curves as if these are laws of nature, but we know that they are not. The trend is your friend only til the bend at the end. And the fact that rich countries have hit an inflection point where economic growth no longer depends on growing resource use is a strong indicator that industrializing countries like China will also hit this point as well. (And no, falling use in rich countries is mostly not due to outsourcing, as the emissions graph above illustrates.)