The Impact of Agro-Economic Factors on GHG Emissions: Evidence from European Developing and Advanced Economies

Environmental degradation by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has been an important challenge of sustainable economic development and climate changes control. Industry is the major source of CO2 emissions, whereas 84% of global anthropogenic methane and nitrous-oxide emissions emerge from agriculture. The impact of agro-economic factors on GHG emissions in European developing economies (Southeastern Europe in focus) as compared with European advanced economies has been examined in this paper. The results have confirmed the existence of significant differences in impact of these factors depending on the level of economic development. For both groups of economies, we have confirmed the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis (inverted U-shaped relationship between GDP per capita and carbon dioxide emissions), but different sectoral outputs, too. We have also established different impacts of agro emission sources. In developing economies, we have recognized livestock breeding as a predominant factor and recommended measures for reducing the emissions in this sector, following developed economies. The findings may be useful to European developing economies as a support to implementation of binding commitments emerging from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In the panel analysis, we have taken into consideration the non-stationarity of the series, heterogeneity of the sample, and also examined a dynamic specification.