Investigation of Per capita CO2 Dynamics in OPEC Countries (β and σ Convergence Approach)

The investigation of CO2 dynamics, using β and σ convergence approaches, is one of the crucial issues in environment economics. Also, design of the coherent policies aiming at fulfilling international protocol targets such as Kyoto protocol and Copenhagen summit depends on both the levels and the distribution of per capita CO2 emissions among countries. For this purpose, the main goal of this paper is to investigate the dynamics of per capita CO2 in OPEC countries during 1970-2013.
In this study, to test the convergence hypothesis of per capita CO2 emissions, two measures of convergence, σ-convergence and β-convergence, are adopted. The empirical absolute β-convergence model has been stipulated within cross-sectional data and fitted by ordinary least squares (OLS) estimator. In order to test σ-convergence, the standard deviation of per capita CO2 emissions was calculated during the study period (1970-2013), and its trend was drawn.
Findings: The major findings indicate that both convergences (β and σ) have occurred in these countries and the speed of β convergence is high (0.97 %). Also, the emission level that all countrie's per capital emissions converge to and the time periods required for catching-up process were estimated to be 4.18(ton) and 5.31(year), respectively.
In this study, the occurrence of caching-up process for per capita CO2 emissions among OPEC members was confirmed. Moreover, the dispersion of per capita CO2 emissions among OPEC countries has a downward trend and has declined. According to the results, adoption of fair and similar environmental policies for reduction of CO2 emissions among OPEC countries is the applicably implied policy in this paper.