| Research Abstract |
Time series data of population, GDP (based on purchasing power parities), primary energy consumption, and CO2 emission for the duration from 1960 to 2003 for OECD countries were collected and used to analyze the environmental loadings of each country to the global warming impacts. Indices, such as per capita value of GDP, primary energy consumption, and CO2 emission, primary energy consumption per unit GDP, and CO2 emission per unit primary energy consumptions, were calculated for each 10 years interval except since 2000 to 2003. By using the cluster analysis, results of groupings of OECD countries from aspect of environmental loadings were described as follows.
1) Following countries as Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and France kept lower energy consumption and lower CO2 emission through all years from 1960. It is confirmed that in these countries energy sources have been transferred to water power or nuclear power.
2) In the countries of Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, and England, it is summarized that energy consumption per GDP is low but CO2 emission per unit energy consumption is high.
3) Both energy consumption and CO2 emission have been kept high level in Luxemburg, USA, Canada, and Australia for long years.
4) In Japan, Korea, Finland, New Zealand and Italy, energy consumption and CO2 emission were kept rather low until 1980s. But after 1990, it is noticeable that energy consumption and CO2 emission are coming bigger in these countries.
The above analysis shows that the indices used here reflect effectively the economic and energy policies and industrial structure of each country, and are usable to access the environmental impacts from each country.
|
