An empirical analysis of the determinants of CO2emissions in ‎GCC countries.

1. Introduction

Since the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit held in 1992, a set of urgent environmental issues, such as global warming, deforestation, and biodiversity loss, has received extensive attention in order to design suitable national and international sustainable development policies. What has been observed during the last decades is that environmental degradation has been associated with good economic performance, but also with a spectacular rise in greenhouse gas emissions.

 2. Literature review

During the last decades, abundant literature has examined the determinants of environmental degradation. In what follows, we discuss the main determinants outlined in previous studies, namely economic growth, energy consumption, financial and trade openness, and urbanization. Then, we summarize the findings of empirical studies focusing on the determinants of environmental degradation in GCC countries.