Improving carbon efficiency: Is economic growth so favourable?

Abstract

In this paper we present an empirical study to verify the assertion of a negative impact of economic growth on carbon efficiency using a cross country analysis. More precisely we are concerned with the relation between past growth and CO 2 emissions, assuming that rapid growth in the past may explain lower carbon efficiency today. The central idea tested is that hasty growth is likely to slow down the improvement of energy and carbon efficiency. In other words, using an ordinary least square multifactor model to explain carbon intensity, we verify that the coefficient for an exogenous variable measuring the average past growth rate (apgr) for each country in our sample, is significantly positive.