A cross-national study of the association between per capita carbon dioxide emissions and exports to the United States

Abstract This research uses panel data (1989–2003) to examine the relationship between per capita carbon dioxide emissions and exports for 169 countries. Fixed effects regression results indicated that within country worldwide exports and United States exports are positively related to per capita carbon dioxide emissions. However, when both exports to the world and to the U.S. are examined simultaneously, only exports to the U.S. are related to carbon dioxide emissions. Additional analysis suggests that not all exports to the U.S. are responsible for the carbon-exports relationship. Specifically, the association between per capita carbon dioxide emissions and exports to the U.S. is largely the result of the oil and gas, petroleum and coal products, chemicals, and re-import industries. The data suggest consumption practices in the U.S. are partially responsible for elevated per capita carbon dioxide emissions in other nations, and that carbon dioxide trends in other nations are in part driven by U.S. demands for goods. These results also indicate that inefficient production methods among countries that export products to the United States may signal a problematic trend in global carbon dioxide emissions.

[1]  David M. Drukker,et al.  Testing for Serial Correlation in Linear Panel-data Models , 2003 .

[2]  Andrew K. Jorgenson.  Global inequality, water pollution, and infant mortality , 2004 .

[3]  Manfred Lenzen,et al.  Examining the global environmental impact of regional consumption activities — Part 2: Review of input–output models for the assessment of environmental impacts embodied in trade , 2007 .

[4]  Kenneth R. N. Anthony,et al.  ReefTemp: An interactive monitoring system for coral bleaching using high‐resolution SST and improved stress predictors , 2008 .

[5]  Bin Shui,et al.  The role of CO2 embodiment in US-China trade , 2006 .

[6]  James Rice,et al.  Ecological Unequal Exchange: International Trade and Uneven Utilization of Environmental Space in the World System , 2007 .

[7]  E. Hulburt.  The Temperature of the Lower Atmosphere of the Earth , 1931 .

[8]  Mark Z. Jacobson,et al.  On the causal link between carbon dioxide and air pollution mortality , 2008 .

[9]  Charles P. Kindleberger,et al.  International trade statistics , 1954 .

[10]  W. Barrett.  Contributions to Molecular Physics in the Domain of Radiant Heat , 1872, Nature.

[11]  Spencer R. Weart,et al.  The Discovery of Global Warming , 2008 .

[12]  J. Bray.  An Analysis of the Possible Recent Change in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration , 1959 .

[13]  Andrew K. Jorgenson.  Global Warming and the Neglected Greenhouse Gas: A Cross-National Study of the Social Causes of Methane Emissions Intensity, 1995 , 2006 .

[14]  E. Rosa,et al.  Effects of population and affluence on CO2 emissions. , 1997, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[15]  P. Grimes,et al.  Exporting the Greenhouse: Foreign Capital Penetration and CO? Emissions 19801996 , 2003 .

[16]  G. S. Callendar.  The artificial production of carbon dioxide and its influence on temperature , 2007 .

[17]  Immanuel Wallerstein,et al.  The modern world system [audiorecording] , 1977 .

[18]  Joseph M. Roop,et al.  The embodiment of carbon in imports of manufactured products: Implications for international agreements on greenhouse gas emissions , 1994 .

[19]  Thomas J. Burns,et al.  Position in the World-System and National Emissions of Greenhouse Gases , 1997 .

[20]  J. Roberts,et al.  Social Roots of Global Environmental Change: A World-Systems Analysis of Carbon Dioxide Emissions , 2003, Globalization and the Environment.

[21]  D. Wheeler.  Racing to the Bottom? Foreign Investment and Air Pollution in Developing Countries , 1999 .

[22]  W. J. Humphreys,et al.  Physics of the Air , 1929, Nature.

[23]  R. Sepanski,et al.  TRENDS '90: A compendium of data on global change , 1991 .

[24]  J. Lovelock.  The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth Is Fighting Back - and How We Can Still Save Humanity , 2006 .

[25]  S. D. Brunn.  Wal-Mart World: The World's Biggest Corporation in the Global Economy , 2006 .

[26]  J. Clapp,et al.  Paths to a Green World: The Political Economy of the Global Environment , 2005 .

[27]  Kenneth A. Bollen,et al.  World System Position, Dependency, and Democracy: The Cross-National Evidence , 1983 .

[28]  Carbon dioxide and climate. , 1959 .

[29]  Andrew K. Jorgenson.  Consumption and Environmental Degradation: A Cross-National Analysis of the Ecological Footprint , 2003 .

[30]  T. Selden,et al.  International Trade Intensity and Carbon Emissions: A Cross-Country Econometric Analysis , 2001 .

[31]  G. Plass.  Carbon dioxide and climate. , 1959, Scientific American.

[32]  J. Roberts,et al.  Carbon intensity and economic development 1962–1991: A brief exploration of the environmental Kuznets curve , 1997 .

[33]  Elisabeth T. Crawford.  Arrhenius: From Ionic Theory to the Greenhouse Effect , 1996 .

[34]  Andrew K. Jorgenson,et al.  Introduction: Globalization and the Environment , 2003 .

[35]  Cheap Labor Strategies and Export-Oriented Industrialization: Some Lessons from the Los Angeles/East Asia Apparel Connection , 1997 .

[36]  Edward B. Barbier,et al.  Economic growth and environmental degradation: The environmental Kuznets curve and sustainable development , 1996 .

[37]  G. Plass.  Infrared Radiation in the Atmosphere , 1956 .

[38]  James Rice,et al.  Structural Dynamics of International Trade and Material Consumption: A Cross-National Study of the Ecological Footprints of Less-Developed Countries , 2005 .

[39]  Thomas Rudel,et al.  Population, development, and tropical deforestation: a cross-national study , 1989 .