Are greenhouse gas emissions correlated with corruption? : a study on the relation between pollution and corruption through the Kyoto Protocol participants

Abstract

Current literature identifies positive correlations between pollution and corruption, ceteris paribus. This project examines this relation with data from Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index and from greenhouse gas emissions in CO2 equivalent from the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR). We find that this relation is stronger when taking into account the total emissions per 1000USD in GDP but weakens when we take into account the change of emissions per 1000 USD between 1990 and 2012. We also found that the country emissions decreased from 1990 to 2008, and did so more greatly as countries were less corrupt; but did not change much from 2008 to 2012, during Kyoto’s first commitment period.