Military spending and CO2 emissions: Empirical findings from countries with highest per capita military spending

Abstract

This study aims to contribute to existing research on CO2 emissions by focusing on military spending. We use data from 47 countries with the highest levels of per capita military spending over the period from 2000 to 2015. The results from the two-stage GMM estimator suggest a positive relationship between defence spending and CO2 emissions: 1% increase in per capita military spending leads to a 0.05% increase in CO2 emissions per capita. GDP per capita has an inverted U-shaped relationship with CO2 emissions, which confirms the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. Renewable energy is also found to mitigate CO2 emissions. Some policy implications of this study are discussed.