Keywords
Abstract
This study examines the paradoxical role of GDP in CO₂ emissions through a sector-attributed analysis of 23 years of national data. While GDP shows a significant negative relationship with total CO₂ emissions in isolation (β = -6.08e⁻¹¹, p = 0.004), its effect becomes statistically insignificant when accounting for sectoral emissions (p = 0.133). The perfect multicollinearity (VIFs > 10) between GDP and sectoral CO₂ components reveals that economic growth serves as a proxy for aggregated emission sources rather than an independent driver. Elasticity analysis confirms this decoupling, with a significant negative GDP elasticity (β = -0.130, p < 0.001). These findings challenge conventional EKC assumptions, suggesting that GDP-centric climate policies may overlook critical sectoral heterogeneities in emission dynamics.
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