Tonmoy Chowdhury

BRICS countries have experienced rapid economic growth and played a vital role in the world economy because of their capacity to produce large number of manufacturing products, supplies of raw materials, natural resources and the advantage of geographical locations and demographic attributes. Extremely speedy process of industrialization process has been acting as one of the key driving forces for rapid economic growth. According to the IAEA, coal use in India and China will more than double by 2050. To achieve high economic growth, these countries are facing severe environmental problem. India and China were the top two nations with largest total ecological footprints in 2003. Research question of the study is whether relationship between Environmental Performance Index and GDP growth rate in BRICS countries prevails? The study used secondary sources. The study used a sample of five emerging developing countries (BRICS) namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. This study examined Environmental Performance Index (EPI) and GDP trends. Based on the collected data covering the period of 2002 to 2016, the analysis indicates that there is a negative relationship between GDP growth rate and Environmental Performance index. However, the study observed that strong correlation between EPI and GDP growth rate except Russia did not prevail. National accounting procedure should include environmental impact which needs to be addressed by the policy makers as suggested by authors.

Trade and investment have positive effects on economic growth and development, especially for developing countries, where trade openness could play a crucial role to eliminate poverty. But in the same way trade and investment can also harm the environment by producing GHG, pollutions and other environmental negative externalities. Since economic development, trade and environment are elaborately interconnected, it is indispensable to amalgamate environmentally affiliated issues on the development agenda. With expansion of economic activities and trade on the one hand and consequent threats to the environment on the other, the question of environment-friendly trade has emerged as a serious policy agenda in recent years. In that context, trade in climate smart goods (CSGs) is assumed to play a significant role in promoting sustainable development pathway. Given that China’s global trade is expanding at an unprecedented scale, the present paper is designed to analyze the trends and trading patterns of China’s trade in CSGs with the rest of the world. Based on the collected data covering the period of 1992 to 2016 from UN Comtrade, the analyses indicate that total trade in CSGs by China has been increasing, but its share in total trade volume is still very low. It is understood that China’s exports and imports of CSGs are dominated by a few products, namely photosensitive semiconductor devices (854,140), static converters (850,440), articles of plastic and arts of other material (392,690), photovoltaic system controller (853,710), discharge lamps, fluorescent (853,931), parts of electric motors, generators, generating sets and rotary converters (850,300), machine and mechanical appliance (847,989), other lead-acid accumulators (850,720), prism, mirrors and other optical elements unmounted (900,190), cooking appliances and plate warmers (732,111), gears and gearing, other than toothed wheels (848,340), other machinery, plant and equipment (841,989), filtering or purifying machinery and apparatus for gases (842,139), etc. While the major trading partners of China for CSGs are the USA, Japan, India, Malaysia, Germany, Korea Republic, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Russia, Brazil, Australia, Pakistan, Israel, among others.