Environmental Policy vs. the Reality of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Top Emitting Countries

Nerea Portillo Juan (), Vicente Negro Valdecantos (), Javier Olalde Rodríguez and Gregorio Iglesias
Additional contact information
Nerea Portillo Juan: Environment, Coast and Ocean Research Laboratory, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Campus Ciudad Universitaria, Calle del Profesor Aranguren 3, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Vicente Negro Valdecantos: Environment, Coast and Ocean Research Laboratory, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Campus Ciudad Universitaria, Calle del Profesor Aranguren 3, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Javier Olalde Rodríguez: Environment, Coast and Ocean Research Laboratory, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Campus Ciudad Universitaria, Calle del Profesor Aranguren 3, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Gregorio Iglesias: Civil Engineering Department, University College Cork, College Road, T12 K8AF Cork, Ireland

Energies, 2024, vol. 17, issue 22, 1-25

Abstract: The 21st century climate crisis has been compounded by the COVID-19 health crisis and the Russian war. What at first appeared to be an opportunity to move towards sustainable growth and development has turned into the opposite. In this context, it seems necessary to pause and analyze what countries are doing and where they are heading in order to ensure that their environmental efforts are not in vain. This article analyzes the environmental policies of the seven countries emitting the most GHGs from 1990 to the present day and compares them with the reality of their emissions. These behaviors are extrapolated into the future and, finally, conclusions are drawn as to which countries are not fully living up to their commitments, which have implemented the most effective measures, and where particular attention needs to be directed for maximum efficiency in decarbonizing the energy mix.

Keywords: climate change; environmental policy; GHG emissions; country analysis; climate crisis; energy mix; decarbonization; fossil fuels; renewable energy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/22/5705/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/22/5705/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:17:y:2024:i:22:p:5705-:d:1521236

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().