The Impact of Environmental Protection Expenditures on Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

In order to address the adverse impacts of climate change, international initiatives, such as the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, are setting targets to governments and asking them to commit to take action. In pursuit of fulfilling these commitments, countries have set national goals, reflecting their policy choices, local contexts and capabilities, to fight against climate change. Given that governments implement their commitments through their budgets, environmental protection expenditures (EPEs) are the major tool that governments use to fight against climate change. This study investigated the extent to which EPEs are effective in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, a major contributor to climate change. Our results provide some evidence that the increase in EPEs has led to a reduction in GHG emissions.