The empirical link between governance and illegal logging is widely accepted amongst scientist, although a minority still purports that illegal logging does not necessarily prevail because of poor governance. However, the nexus linking governance, illegal logging and carbon emission is not well enshrined in scientific literature. This paper seeks to review the literature on illegal logging and governance and empirically investigate the effect of illegal logging and governance effectiveness on carbon emission. Using panel dynamic ordinary least square method on data covering three Congo Basin timber-producing countries and three Asian timber-producing countries, this paper further investigates disaggregated effects between these two groups of countries. The empirical evidence underscores that Congo Basin timber-producing countries are characterised by increasing trend of illegal logging, poor governance effectiveness and corruption. Panel regression reveals a positive and significant impact of illegal logging, governance effectiveness and corruption on carbon emission. Asian producing countries depict a reducing trend in illegal logging and improvements in governance and corruption. There is a positive but not significant impact of illegal logging on carbon emission, and governance effectiveness reduces carbon emission. Thus, the dynamics of governance, illegal logging and carbon emission is not the same between timber-producing countries in Asia and Congo producing counties, thus suggesting the ability of institutions to curb illegal logging and enforce laws to reduce the effects of carbon emission. Multi-stakeholder consultations, government engagement, partnerships and training of control staff can help curb corruption. Legality checks should go beyond having legal documents to effectively check and control of timber concessions and small-scale logging.

治理与非法采伐之间的经验联系已被科学家广泛接受，尽管少数人仍然声称非法采伐不一定因治理不善而盛行。但是，科学文献并未充分体现治理，非法采伐和碳排放之间的联系。本文旨在回顾有关非法采伐和治理的文献，并从经验上研究非法采伐和治理有效性对碳排放的影响。本文使用面板动态普通最小二乘法对涵盖三个刚果盆地木材生产国和三个亚洲木材生产国的数据进行了研究，进一步研究了这两组国家之间的分类影响。经验证据强调，刚果盆地木材生产国的特点是非法采伐趋势日益严重，治理效果差和腐败。面板回归显示，非法采伐，治理有效性和腐败对碳排放产生了积极而重大的影响。亚洲生产国的非法砍伐趋势有所减少，治理和腐败状况有所改善。非法采伐对碳排放有积极但不重大的影响，治理有效性可以减少碳排放。因此，亚洲的木材生产国与刚果的生产国之间的治理，非法采伐和碳排放的动力并不相同，因此，表明了机构遏制非法采伐和执行法律以减少碳排放影响的能力。多方利益相关者协商，政府参与，伙伴关系以及对控制人员的培训可以帮助遏制腐败。合法性检查应不仅仅具有法律文件，以有效地检查和控制木材特许权和小规模采伐。