Developing countries and emission reduction commitments - Understanding the drivers of environmental impact

Abstract

Most developing countries view participation in a global climate change treaty as being synonymous with drastic emission cuts. Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence for the link between anthropogenic sources and climate change impacts, there is still a limited understanding of the specific forces driving those impacts.Keeping in view the above, this study contributes in two waysi)Briefly discusses a plausible burden sharing arrangement - the per capita emissions approach - for an all encompasssing global climate change treaty such that negotiations are reduced to two manageable variables.ii)Conducts a country wise empirical analysis for analyzing the drivers of environmental impact, in a sample of 6 developing countries. Our assessment is informed by the well known stochastic reformulation of the IPAT identity, known as the STIRPAT modelThe per-capita emissions approach is modified for addressing the first objective.While addressing the second objective, the thesis undertakes a time-series analysis within the framework of the STIRPAT model to identify for variations.