Chapter 11 The Issue of Sustainable Urbanization in BRICS Nations: An Impact-Analysis of Urban Energy Consumption and Carbon Emission

Sustainable urban development implies a process by which sustainability can be attained, emphasizing improvement, progress and positive change, incorporating both environmental and social dimensions. Thus, sustainable urban development highlights the need to reform the market mechanism to achieve environmental goals with the attainment of a balance with social and economic considerations. The large and emerging economies of BRICS have experienced fast-paced urbanization process in recent decades. Along with it the problem of environmental degradation occurs as fast urbanization requires more and more energy consumption as well as carbon emission. Here comes the problem of sustainable urbanization which is a matter of serious concern to deal with. In this chapter, five BRICS nations have taken up to see their respective progress in the fields of per capita energy consumption and carbon emission in their urban areas. To show this it investigates the relationship between urbanization, energy consumption, and CO 2 emissions over the period 1992–2014, using a panel data model. The relative potentials of the countries to reduce respective CO 2 emissions are also analyzed. The results indicate that per capita CO 2 emissions are characterized by conspicuous regional imbalances during the study period. Nations are found to present a long run bidirectional positive relationship, the importance of which is found to vary between the respective regions of the countries.