ABSTRACT
The EKC2 is purported to be an inverted U-shaped curve designed to explain the dependence of environmental degradation on the level of economic development. It is typically described for a given country, or cross section of countries, as a relation between PCI and select environmental indicators,3 each taken separately. The EKC implies that global pollution is driven largely by the development efforts of LDCs as they traverse the upward rising part of the EKC.4 On the other hand, the purported downturn of the EKC at high levels of PCI implies that developed countries are contributing to the amelioration of environmental degradation. However, such studies do not emphasise the level of GED,5 which we conceive of as a worldwide phenomenon,6 to be captured by a more composite index emphasising a wider notion of environmental degradation and not just pollution. Hence, these studies cannot address the distribution of GED and its relationship to economic development. This chapter develops an EDI, based on several indicators of environmental degradation or pollution, for each of the 174 countries represented in the HDI. An analysis of the spatial behaviour of the EDIs helps us to identify the contribution of various countries to GED, defined as an aggregation7 of these EDIs, and to assess whether particular countries are contributing excessively to GED.
