Impact of population and economic growth on carbon emissions of developed and developing countries

Abstract

Climate change has become the biggest impending source of doom for mankind. It is a common consensus that carbon emissions are one of the main reasons for this catastrophe. The aim of this research is to study the impact of population and economic growth on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. A data set of nine countries, three each from developed (Japan, USA, UK), fast developing (India, China and Brazil) and slow developing categories (Congo, Bangladesh and Malaysia), over 30 years has been considered for this study. For the purpose of analysis, a stochastic model containing CO2 emissions as the dependent variable, and population, affluence which is measured by the GDP per capita and technology which is measured by resources used per unit production as independent variables. We find that population growth and economic growth have been a prime contributor to CO2 emissions globally in the last two decades.