Empirical Study of Determinant Variables of Carbon Dioxide Emissions Per Capita at National and Regional Levels

Abstract

In recent years, with the development of social economy, there is a tendency of increasing CO2 emission in the world. As a greenhouse gas, the increase of CO2 emissions will bring many adverse effects on the global climate and environment. So reducing CO2 emissions is very important, because it is related to human development. The study aims to investigate what determinant variables would affect the CO2 emission per capita, and the relationship between its emissions and those determinant variables. Based on several hypotheses, this paper builds a linear regression model, in which the determinant variables are GDP, electric power consumption, combustible renewables and waste, fossil fuel energy consumption in total energy consumption, trade, motor vehicle per 1000 people and urban population, established by the data of 102 countries in 2017. In the end, we draw a conclusion that GDP, electric power energy consumption, fossil fuel consumption, and motor vehicle per 1000 people play essential roles on carbon emission per capita at the national and regional levels. These findings would guide future policy making by balancing GDP growth and CO2 emission as well as the appropriate use of fossil fuel energy in the total energy consumption. These findings are of great significance to the guidance of CO2 emission policies, so that we can achieve the reduction of CO2.