Balancing Growth and Sustainability: Evidence from GDP, Population, and CO₂ Emissions from Transport in BRICS Countries

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-685-2_2How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Transport Emissions; BRICS; Fixed Effects; Random Effects; Variance Inflation Factor

Abstract

The present study makes an attempt to understand how CO₂ Emissions from Transport, could be linked to GDP and Population for five BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and S. Africa) by analyzing data for the period 1990-2023. The aim is to assess whether such linkages exist and, if they do, to evaluate the extent to which economic growth and population contribute to emissions both for each BRICS country individually and for the group as a whole. Further, to enhance the robustness of the analysis, time series, pooled and panel (fixed and random effects) regression techniques have been employed to examine the impact of GDP and population on transport emissions. The comparison of various models revealed that the appropriate model as applicable on our data was Fixed Effects. The results of the study pointed out that economic growth was a major driver of transport emissions across all BRICS nations; both individually and collectively whereas population did not exhibit a similar impact. It was also observed that in pursuit of economic growth, many BRICS nations had made substantial investments in infrastructure and large-scale development projects. The study therefore recommends BRICS nations to make all infrastructure investments sustainable to support emission reduction due to transport. The study also recommends promoting low carbon transport technologies including switching to green and hybrid fuels, building infrastructure using sustainable technologies and emphasizing circular economy, all must be prioritized and strongly implemented keeping into consideration their role in emissions reduction.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Chehak Chawla
AU  - Rakesh Shahani
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/05/26
TI  - Balancing Growth and Sustainability: Evidence from GDP, Population, and CO₂ Emissions from Transport in BRICS Countries
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Infrastructure Development and Sustainability (ICIDS 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 4
EP  - 18
SN  - 3005-155X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-685-2_2
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-685-2_2
ID  - Chawla2026
ER  -