Stationarity of Global Per Capita Carbon Dioxide Emissions: Implications for Global Warming Scenarios

Ross McKitrick and Mark Strazicich ()

No 503, Working Papers from University of Guelph, Department of Economics and Finance

Abstract: Annual global CO2 emission forecasts at 2100 span 10 to 40 billion tonnes. Modeling work over the past decade has not narrowed this range nor provided much guidance about probabilities. We examine the time-series properties of historical per capita CO2 emissions and conclude that per capita global emissions are stationary without trend, and have a constant mean of 1.14 tonnes per person with standard deviation of 0.02. With estimates of 21st century peak population levels in the 8-10 billion range, this implies that most emissions scenarios currently used for global warming forecasts are unrealistically high.

Keywords: Global Warming; Structural Break; Emission Scenarios. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q43 Q54 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2005
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Working Paper: Stationarity of Global Per Capital Carbon Dioxide Emissions: Implications for Global Warming Scenarios (2005)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gue:guelph:2005-3

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