The relationship between economic growth and carbon dioxide emissions

Identifier:  TFG:4969

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TFG4969

Authors:  Jyborn, Jenny Rebecca

Abstract:
This thesis will focus on the relationship between Gross Domestic Product and carbon dioxide emissions. There will be an analysis if the Environmental Kuznet Curve hypothesis created by Simon Kuznets (1955) holds for six different countries. The hypothesis tells us that when a country's Gross Domestic Product increases, the carbon dioxide emissions increase too. Eventually the pollution will reach a turning point and the environment will slowly start to recover. Moreover, this study has been carried out by doing a time series analysis and an estimation of each country’s turning point where the carbon dioxide emissions will start to decrease while the Gross Domestic Product continues to increase. The countries examined are four developed countries Sweden, Denmark, the United Kingdom and France, and two developing countries India and Mexico. The data for the countries has been collected depending on availability and it varies between 119 to 194 observations. Our findings illustrate that the Environmental Kuznet Curve hypothesis holds for each of our selected countries, but the illustrations show a vague turning point for India and Mexico. To fight climate change, policymakers and the corporate world are the most responsible for decreasing the environmental footprint.