CO2 emissions: A quantitative analysis among the BRICS nations

This study aims to examine the volume of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by lag of the emissions and by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries from 1980 to 2011. Due to the heterogeneity of CO2 emission among the BRICS countries, we organized the countries into two groups. In Group 1 (Brazil and Russia), we identified that the main causes of the variation of CO2 emission in time t are the emission of CO2 in time t-1 and the annual GDP of the country. In Group 2 (China, India, and South Africa), the findings do not depend on the income level of individual countries, but only from the emission of CO2 in the lag period. Therefore, the main contribution of this study is that the environmental consequences of growing economic activity may be very mixed and must be examined on a case-by-case basis.