Energy and Environmental Flows: Do Most Financialised Countries within the Mediterranean Area Export Unsustainability?

Abstract

The literature dedicated to the problems of transboundary pollution often aims to verify what the environmental and energy interactions between countries are. Little attention is paid to the financial relations of the phenomenon. We analyze how financial, environmental and energy flows have been redistributed within the main Mediterranean countries, with particular reference to pollution. Applying advanced methods of correlation, we verify the dynamics of transfer processes with the aim of assessing whether the link between economic and financial and environmental flows might support the hypothesis that rich countries export environmental emissions to poor ones. Our results show that richer countries have a significant propensity to export energy, financial flows and polluting emissions. The imbalance is even greater for emissions with local impact. This process is accompanied by a substantial increase in the financial activities of the North Mediterranean countries to the detriment of those of the South, which progressively increase their indebtedness. We find out that the economic and financial development of the North Med is accompanied by an increasing environmental impact measured by the various types of emissions covered by our study. The research shows how the most industrialized countries of the Mediterranean area are increasing the economic and financial gap with respect to the Southern Mediterranean countries.