World Carbon Dioxide Emissions: 1950–2050

Abstract

—Emissions of carbon,dioxide,from,the combustion,of fossil fuels, which may contribute to long-term climate change, are projected through,2050 using reduced-form,models,estimated,with national-level panel data for the period of 1950‐1990. Using the same,set of income,and population growth assumptions,as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we find that the IPCC’s widely used emissions growth projections exhibit significant and substantial departures from the implica- tions of historical experience. Our model,employs,a flexible form,for income effects, along with fixed time and country effects, and we handle forecast uncertainty explicitly. We find clear evidence,of an ‘‘inverse U’’ relation with a within-sample peak between,carbon dioxide emissions (and energy use) per capita and per-capita income.