Greenhouse gas emissions from Brazilian agriculture and convergence clubs

ABSTRACT

This work aims to assess whether there is a convergence in the emission of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) in the states of Brazil. To achieve this objective, the Phillips and Sul (2007) time series methodology was employed, testing the hypothesis of global (or common) convergence, using data from the Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Removal Estimation System (Sistema de Estimativas de Emissões e Remoções de Gases do Efeito Estufa - SEEG), for the period of 1989–2018, which provides the emission, in tons, of Carbon Monoxide (CO) in agriculture and livestock, as well as of Carbon Dioxide (CO2), for changes in land and forest use. Among the main results, the formation of different convergence clubs is suggested, rejecting the hypothesis of global convergence, and thus presenting four convergence clubs for the CO pollutant and three clubs for the CO2, with two divergent states. When analysing the convergence clubs, it was found that there was a significant reduction in CO emissions in all clubs, and while analysing the CO2, only two of the clubs, which were clubs 3 and 4, managed to reduce their emissions.

KEYWORDS:

• Greenhouse gases
• convergence clubs
• time series
• Brazil

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• Q1
• Q52
• Q53

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Information was used from 1989 onwards, as that is the year in which the state of Tocantins was created.

2. Rejecting cointegration does not necessarily imply an absence of approval or convergence. For more information, see Phillips and Sul (2007), p.1779.

3. As previously mentioned, the series starts in 1989 because that’s when there is available data for the state of Tocantins.

4. Further details on regularity conditions regarding ${\sigma }_i$ and ${\xi }_{it}$ can be found in Phillips and Sul (2007), 1786–1787.