Detecting Leaders Country from Road Transport Emission Time-Series

Abstract

Nowadays, climate change and global warming have become the main concerns worldwide. One of the main causes are the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced by human activities, especially by the transportation sector. The adherence to international agreements and the implementation of climate change policy are necessary conditions for reducing environmental problems. This paper investigates the lead–lag relationship between Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Annex I member countries on road transport emission performance focusing on the statistical analysis of the lead–lag relationships between the road transport emission time-series from 1970–2018 extracted by the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) database. The analysis was carried out using the cross-correlation function between each pair of the countries’ time-series considered. Empirical results confirm that some nations have been playing a role as leaders, while others as followers. Sweden can be considered the leader, followed by Germany and France. By analyzing their environmental policy history, we can figure out a common point that explains our results.