Determinants of climate change at the country level

Abstract

We study the determinants of climate change across a large number of countries. As a measure of climate change at the country level we use average yearly increases in population-weighted average temperature over the periods 1900 to 2014 and 1960 to 2014 estimated for individual countries. We find that higher average yearly increases in population-weighted average temperature across countries over both the periods 1900-2014 and 1960-2014 tend to be associated with higher energy use, higher carbon dioxide emissions and higher greenhouse gas emissions. These results provide evidence at the country level for the relevance of energy use, carbon dioxide emissions and greenhouse gas emissions for climate change.