Institute for Social and Economic Change |
Working Paper: 447
The Relationship between Economic Growth and
Carbon Emissions in India
Kaumudi Misra
Abstract
This paper attempts to analyse the relationship between economic growth and carbon emissions in India. The parameters selected for understanding this relationship are GDP (as a proxy of economic growth) and CO2 emissions for the period 1970-2012. The study includes other important parameters such as energy consumption (oil) and urbanisation. Granger causality is used to check the existence of unidirectional and bi-directional causalities between the variables. The results reveal that there exists a unidirectional causality from energy consumption and GDP to carbon emissions. The ARDL model is used to understand the long run and short run relationship between the variables. The study finds that there exists a long run relationship between the variables whereas in the short run, there is no relationship between the variables. The findings imply that any attempt at reducing carbon emissions without bringing in energy efficiency will adversely affect the economic growth of the country.