Abstract
There is huge evidence for a relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation. One of the causes of environmental degradation is CO2 emission which is added to the atmosphere through human activities and excessive industrialization. The aim of this research is to examine the relationship between CO2 emissions and measures of wealth in countries of Central and Eastern Europe between 2000 and 2019. The paper extends the research on economic affluence by taking into consideration two measures of economic growth, in addition to GDP, the HDI index is included. The basis for the investigation is the EKC concept. All analyses are based on econometric models with GDP and the HDI index as independent variables. The results are not conclusive and there is no one model which best describes the relationship between CO2 emissions and economic growth. Verification of the models indicates the better fit of models with the HDI index as the measure of affluence. Moreover, the study confirms that the key factors affecting CO2 emissions are energy consumption per capita which leads to an increase in CO2 emissions, and renewable energy consumption which reduces CO2 emissions. Therefore, technological changes and an increase in human awareness of global sustainability are required.
Highlights
Climate change, which affects the whole world in various ways, is, among other things, the result of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG)
Due to the limitations and contradictory results of empirical studies related to the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) concept, this paper investigates the impact of economic affluence on CO2 emissions using various variables
Different from other works, this paper extends the economic affluence by taking into consideration two measures of economic growth, in addition to GDP, the Human Development Index (HDI) is included
Summary
Climate change, which affects the whole world in various ways, is, among other things, the result of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). Research that has been conducted over the years has confirmed that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are the dominant cause of the increase in the Earth’s average temperature over the past 250 years. The effects of climate change affect all over the world; multisectoral international action has to be taken. Examples of global agreements on sustainable development and climate change are the Kyoto Protocol (1997), the Paris Agreement (2015), and other treaties undertaken during climate conferences. They promote a coherent vision of sustainable development based on low-carbon technologies and resource efficiency
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