Effects of CO2 Emissions on the Human Development Index: Application to the Case of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Other Developed Countries

The main purpose of this paper is to study the effects of CO2 emissions on the human development index (HDI). Studies in this area currently show little signs of reaching any unanimity among researchers as there are two strong opposing theories that stand against each other. The first confirms that the HDI is affected negatively by CO2 emissions, while the second supports that increased human development is still recorded in the most polluting countries (those that emit the most, but may not see the effects as immediately in their own countries). From a sample of eight countries and through the employment of the ARDL model, we have shown that results converge much more toward the second point of view. Indeed, from our sample, we noticed that in the long term, the USA, the UK, and Morocco are in the model that promises human development through polluting growth. Similarly, the rentier countries, despite the awareness displayed by some of them of the need to grow ecologically, can no longer divest themselves of their traditional sources of wealth generation given the loss of earnings that they will sacrifice. Worse still, in the long term, the results showed that hegemonic countries like the USA, UK, Norway, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) continue in their old polluting models.