Worldwide fluctuations in carbon emissions: Characterization and synchronization

Coordinated and cooperative efforts among international actors are necessary for climate policy effectiveness. From a macroeconomic perspective, the greater the synchronization of business cycles, the greater the potential for policy coordination and joint decision making. In light of the procyclical behaviour between the business cycle and the carbon emission cycle, this work tries to shed light on carbon emission fluctuations of sixteen major developed and developing economies during 1946–2021. In analogy with “classical” business cycle research, the analysis dates expansionary and contractionary phases, determines their durations and amplitudes. It also inspects emission synchronization between pairs and groups of countries in order to assess their degree of carbon integration. Carbon emission fluctuations are mostly an expansionary phenomenon. Compared to developed countries, developing countries feature on average longer cycles (i.e., a lower number of full cycles), less time spent in contraction, longer expansionary phases, shorter contractionary phases and larger absolute amplitudes. Pairwise carbon emission fluctuations are synchronized in 34.2% cases. Developed economies have their own common emission cycle. As for developing economies, results are heterogeneous. Only part of them, in fact, shows evidence of a common carbon emission cycle despite a relatively recent history of cooperation, heterogeneous geographical locations and socio-cultural features.