Factors Affecting CO2 Emissions in the BRICS Countries: A Panel Data Analysis

The effects of climate change are being felt on all continents of the world and these impacts are predicted to intensify in the coming decades. Unmitigated climate change poses great risks to human health, global food security, and economic development and to the natural world on which much of our prosperity depends. Society therefore needs to take measures to adapt to these unavoidable impacts while taking action to cut the greenhouse gas emissions that are contributing to climate change. This study analyzes the interactions that may exist between the total energy consumption, FDI, economic growth, and the emission of CO2 in the BRICS countries, using the co-integration tests and panel Granger causality in panel. The results show significantly that there is a co-integration relationship between CO2 emissions and economic variables. The results also indicate the existence of a unidirectional causality from CO2 to the independent variables. These results can help decision makers in these countries to understand and grasp the complexity of this phenomenon; a better understanding of this phenomenon will probably better guide future decisions to deal with this threat that weighs more heavily on the scene world politics. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.