Air Pollution: a Damage Resulting from Economic Development Essay

This term paper is about the impacts of emission of harmful gases like sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide etc. due to the development of industrial business in Bangladesh. Here, the study has been based on the regression analysis of percentage of carbon dioxide emission per metric ton and GDP per capita of eight Asian countries to determine that how environmental pollution is increasing because of industrial progression. And it has been found that they have positive relation. The motto of this term paper is to remind of the fact that only thinking about the economic development of the country should not be welcomed unless the importance of environmental welfare is being realized. The relationship between economic growth and the environment is debatable. Traditional economic theory posits a trade-off between economic growth and environmental quality. Since the early 1990s, however, the rapidly expanding empirical and theoretical literature has suggested that the relationship between economic growth and the environment could be positive and hence growth is a prerequisite for environmental improvement. But on the other hand, growth could be an affective reason of environmental pollution. This paper depicts the empirical pattern that at relatively low levels of GDP per capita, pollution level (and intensity) initially increases with rising income. The dominant theoretical explanation is that when GDP increases, the greater scale of production leads directly to more pollution, but, at a higher level of income per capita, the demand for health and environmental quality rises with income which can translate into environmental regulation, in which case there tend to be favorable shifts in the composition of output and in the techniques of production. Air pollution can be occurred in two ways-increasing of suspended particular matters (dusts, fumes, mists and smokes) and emission of gaseous pollutants. Among these two components, air pollution due to gaseous pollutants is a severe pollution of modern era. Air pollution is one of the causes of environmental pollution and because of environmental pollution; people face various kinds of fatal diseases which may decrease the productivity level of them. As a result economic development of a country could be hampered. Sustainable development has been one of the alarming concerns in the twenty-first century. It has significant implications on the extent of economic activity in the future. Anderson and Brooks (1996) have given the statement, â€Å"scientific basis supporting the relationship between business activities, resource depletion and the environment has grown stronger in recent years.† Grossman (1995) offers three main explanations as to how air pollution due to economic development affects one country’s environment- First is the â€Å"scale effect of income on the ‘environment’. As more outputs are produced, more inputs are (natural resources included) are required and more wastes and emissions by products are created during the process. Second is the technology composition effect. This refers to the technology as a percent of GDP. Third is the technique effect. Technique pertains to the research and development of a country. Air pollution measurements for eight Asian countries (China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, South Korea, Bangladesh, Singapore, and Thailand) are calculated by collecting the percentage of carbon dioxide emission (per metric ton) and GDP per capita of one particular year from the World Bank data. Here, carbon dioxide emission is the dependent variable and GDP per capita is the independent variable. And then from regression analysis the result has been occupied.