Ecological footprint, CO2 emissions and economic growth in Qatar : Evidence from a Markov Switching Equilibrium Correction Model Charfeddine Lanouar1, Department of Finance and Economics, College of Business and Economics, Qatar University, Qatar. Abstract Reducing the impact of air pollution and global environment degradation on Human health and the quality of Qatari living is one of the most important pillars of Qatar 2030 vision. With respect to this vision, we examine the effects of economic growth, energy consumption, urbanization, openness trade and financial development on environment quality during the period 1975-2011 in Qatar. Unlike the existing studies, we use the ecological footprint and the 퐶푂2 emissions as indicators of environment degradation. Moreover, we use Markov Switching Equilibrium Correction Model with shifts in both the intercept and the income per capita coefficient. Our finding show strong evidence for cointegration with Markov shifts. We found, for both pollutants, that the EKC hypothesis holds for the Qatar economy when accounting for possible shifts. Moreover, we found that financial development, urbanization and openness trade worse environment. In contrast, we found that the effect of electricity consumption on 퐶푂2 emissions is positive and negative for ecological foot print. Keywords : Environment degradation, EKC, CO2, foot print, economic growth, Cointegration with Markov shifts. JEL classification : 1 P.O.Box: 2713-Doha-Qatar. Email :
[email protected]. Office : (+974) 4403-7764, Fax : (+974) 4403-5081. 1 1. Introduction “Long live the planet. Live Humanity. Long live life itself.” With this slogan of the COP21 Paris climate change conference of November-December 2015, there is actually no doubt in the priority of preserving the planet from the growing warmer of the earth’s atmosphere in the coming years.