Economic Development and Environmental Pollution in South West Asia and the Annex 1 Countries in Kyoto Protocol(With Emphasis on the Environmental Kuznets Curve)

The EKC hypothesis postulates an inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental pollution and the level of development. Along with trend of development, industrialization and the growth of technology in last years, air pollution has discussed as a serious problem for man. In particular, if we concentrate on local air pollutants many empirical contributions have identified a bell-shaped curve linking per capita pollution to per capita GDP (but in the case of global pollutants like CO2 the evidence is less clear-cut).This study estimates the relationship between human development index (HDI) as index of economic development and per capita carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions during 1990-2004 using panel data for two groups of countries: the countries in the region of the South West Asia and the annex 1 countries in Kyoto protocol. The result of study shows an increasing trend for developing countries of the South West Asia and an N-shaped curve for the annex 1 countries.