Persistence of methane emission in OECD countries for 1750-2014: A fractional integration approach.

Abstract

The statistical structure of the methane emissions in a group of 36 OECD countries has been examined in this work for the time period 1750-2014 using techniques based on fractional integration. This allows us to determine the degree of persistence of the series and the potential presence of trends in the data. Our results indicate that all series are highly persistent, with orders of integration above 1 in the majority of the cases. Linear (positive) trends are observed in approximately half of the cases. One of the implications of these findings is that policies designed for decreasing methane emissions will have a long term impact in these countries.