Impact of democracy on CO2 emmissions

Since the environmental pollution is a socioeconomic problem and resultant of political decisions, we use variables on political and governance regimes besides economic variables to study environmental pollution. Although, various studies on the relationship between democratic political regimes and social phenomena have been completed, this study estimates the impact of democracy on environmental pollution using a panel data approach within three groups of petroleum exporting countries during 1996-2013. The selected countries are classified by rank of Human Development Index (HDI). The results show a significant negative correlation between democracy index and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per capita in the first group (countries with high HDI). The corresponding correlation is significantly positive for the second group (countries with middle HDI), however it is insignificantly negative in the third group (countries with low HDI). In addition, economic growth has significant positive effect on CO2 emissions per capita within 3 groups. Finally, energy efficiency is of significant negative relationship with CO2 emissions per capita.