What’s happening between the United States and China is far bigger than a mere trade dispute. It’s the first step in the long march to a new world order.

The decoupling of economic growth from energy consumption—the ability to produce more units of GDP from each unit of energy consumed—is one of the most important trends going for the environment. The environmental movement has been slow to embrace this phenomenon, but as BP writes in its annual Energy Outlook, the world is figuring out how to grow green.