Per Capita Carbon Dioxide Emissions: Convergence or Divergence?

Joseph E. Aldy ()

Discussion Papers from Resources For the Future

Abstract: Understanding and considering the distribution of per capita carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is important in designing international climate change proposals and incentives for participation. I evaluate historic international emissions distributions and forecast future distributions to assess whether per capita emissions have been converging or will converge. I find evidence of convergence among 23 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), whereas emissions appear to be diverging for an 88-country global sample over 1960–2000. Forecasts based on a Markov chain transition matrix provide little evidence of future emissions convergence and indicate that emissions may diverge in the near term. I also review the shortcomings of environmental Kuznets curve regressions and structural models in characterizing future emissions distributions.

Keywords: emissions distributions; environmental Kuznets curve; Markov chain transition matrix (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O40 Q54 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env and nep-for
Date: 2005-11-23
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Related works:
Journal Article: Per Capita Carbon Dioxide Emissions: Convergence or Divergence? (2006)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-05-53

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