Trade openness and climate change: Cross-country analysis

In this study, the effect of trade openness and income over pollution has been investigated. In the research, carbon dioxide (CO2), which emerges as the result of the combustion of the fossil fuels and which causes on its own %70 of the greenhouse effect being the major cause of Climate Change has been used as the indicator of pollution. As the indicator of trade openness, similar to the recent academic literature, the ratio of total foreign trade to gross domestic product has been utilized. In this thesis, countries with the World?s 20 largest economies in terms of the gross domestic product calculated in accordance to their purchasing power parity of the year 2011, have been determined and the indicators of these countries for the period of 1990-2009 have been analyzed in a Pooled Ordinary Least Squares model. Additionally, in the study, the contribution of developing and developed countries to the climate change has been investigated in a comparative way.