Brazilian economic growth and the emission of CO2

Abstract

The objective of paper is verifying empirically the relationship between GDP per capita and CO2 emissions in Brazil in the period 1980-2006. The scope of work was limited to this natural resource due to its role in economic activity, as an important input in the production process in the Brazilian energy matrix. Among the main results is that there is a long-term relationship and simultaneous causality between variables and GDP per capita CO2 emissions. This evidence, coupled with the fact that the series used were not stationary in level, impossible to estimate the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), which is the main theoretical basis used in empirical work related to the theme. The VAR / VEC has been estimated and found elasticity between economic growth and CO2 emission was 7.32, ie, in the long run, we can infer that an increase of 1% in GDP per capita increases by 7, 32% CO2 emissions.