Does Economic Growth Increase CO2 Emissions in BRICS Countries?

Abstract

Sustainability is an increasingly important issue in the modern world and an essential concept that is increasingly gaining importance in today's world. It refers to the responsible use of natural resources while ensuring that future generations can meet their needs. The impact of human activities on the environment is becoming more apparent, with climate change and biodiversity loss being some of the major challenges that we face today. Considering the foregoing discussion, the present study comprises two main objectives: firstly, to find out the relationship between economic growth, which is measured by the growth of GDP per capita and CO2 emissions per capita in the BRICS nations, and to find out unidirectional or bidirectional causality between carbon emissions and proxies of economic growth based on the data collected from the world development indicator for the period 1990 to 2022. The results suggest that a bi-directionally causality exists between carbon emissions per capita and economic growth per capita in the BRICS countries.