Explaining Relationship between Carbon Footprint and Economic Growth with Emphasis on Welfare Index: Evidence from Panel Data for OPEC Countries

Considering oil-rich status of OPEC member countries, abundance of energy resource and its low cost, environmental quality is at low level due to production and extraction of energy resources. Iran is also a part of this collection, thus, the higher greenhouse gas emission in these countries makes more problems for the human beings and other creatures and control, and observation of standards in this regard becomes more important than ever. Therefore, the present study was conducted to investigate the relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and economic growth with emphasis on the social welfare index of OPEC member countries. To this end, the data of OPEC member countries from 2000 to 2014 were analyzed using the data panel approach. The results showed that CO2 emissions have a positive and significant relationship with the economic growth of OPEC member countries, which means that the higher the CO2 emissions, the higher the nominal growth. However, when the relationship between CO2 emissions and economic growth is calculated by emphasizing the welfare index, it shows that this effect is declining. It means that the effect of pollution on declining welfare ultimately reduces the rate of economic growth. Give. Therefore, countries should take a constructive step in improving economic growth and reducing pollution by improving the quality of the environment and creating a suitable foundation for realization of this goal, because one of the main goals of societies and governments is to improve the welfare of society.