Impacts of economic growth and urbanization on CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> emissions: regional differences in China based on panel estimation

This study analyzed the impact of urbanization and the level of economic development on CO₂ emissions using the STIRPAT model and provincial panel data for China. This study classified the 29 provinces of China into three groups (eastern, central, and western regions) and examined regional differences in the environmental impacts of urbanization and economic development levels. The results demonstrated that there was an inverted U-shaped relationship between urbanization and CO₂ emissions in the central and western regions of China. However, we did not confirm the environmental Kuznets curve relationship between urbanization and CO₂ emissions in eastern China, where CO₂ emissions increase monotonically with urbanization. This study showed that the impacts of urbanization differ considerably. There was a U-shaped relationship between economic growth and CO₂ emissions. However, the point of inflexion was very low, which indicates that economic growth will promote CO₂ emissions in China. The share of the industry output value had a marginal incremental effect on CO₂ emissions. There was a decreasing effect of population scale on CO₂ emissions. Energy efficiency is the main factor that restrains CO₂ emissions, and the effect was higher in regions with low energy efficiency.     

Income inequality and CO2 emissions: nonlinear evidence from Turkey

The income inequality-economy link has been argued by researchers a long time. But the impact of income inequality on environmental pollution is a new investigation topic for developing countries. Turkey is well known as an emerging economy which has a high level of income inequality and CO₂ emissions. Therefore, this paper concentrates on the income inequality-CO₂ emissions link in Turkish economy by applying a nonlinear analysis. This paper integrates economic growth and financial development to the CO₂ emissions specification over the period of 1987–2019. We employ the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag approach to explore the long-run nonlinear linkages between the series. Our findings reveal an asymmetric cointegration among variables. Positive and negative income inequality shocks positively affect CO₂ emissions implying that positive and negative shocks of income inequality enhance CO₂ emissions in the long run. Negative economic growth shocks decrease CO₂ emissions, while positive shocks to financial development increase CO₂ emissions in the long run. We provide important policy suggestions that might be useful to the policymakers to decrease CO₂ emissions in Turkey.

     

Tourism and CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> emissions nexus in Southeast Asia: new evidence from panel estimation

The past decade has seen the rapid development of the tourist industry in Southeast Asia. There is increasing concern that tourism is highly affecting CO₂ emissions, but the nature of the relationship is still unclear. The main target of this paper is to investigate the existence of a linear and/or nonlinear relationship between tourism and CO₂ emissions in the five most important countries located in Southeast Asia, using the panel cointegration and pooled mean group techniques. The results indicate that tourism and CO₂ emissions are cointegrated, implying that tourism affects CO₂ emissions in the long run. Our findings support the nonlinear relationship between tourism and emissions as well as economic activities and CO₂ emissions. Accordingly, an inverted U-shaped relationship exists between tourism and emissions confirming the existence of an Environmental Kuznets Curve in the Southeast Asian tourism industry. Furthermore, the empirical results show that economic activities and energy consumption greatly increase emissions.     

CO2 emissions in German, Swedish and Colombian manufacturing industries

This study evaluates and compares the trends in CO₂ emissions for the manufacturing industries of three countries: two developed countries (Germany and Sweden) that have applied several measures to promote a shift towards a low-carbon economy and one developing country (Colombia) that has shown substantial improvements in the reduction of CO₂ emissions. This analysis is conducted using panel data cointegration techniques to infer causality between CO₂ emissions, production factors and energy sources. The results indicate a trend of producing more output with less pollution. The trends for these countries’ CO₂ emissions depend on investment levels, energy sources and economic factors. Furthermore, the trends in CO₂ emissions indicate that there are emission level differences between the two developed countries and the developing country. Moreover, the study confirms that it is possible to achieve economic growth and sustainable development while reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as Germany and Sweden demonstrate. In the case of Colombia, it is important to encourage a reduction in CO₂ emissions through policies that combine technical and economic instruments and incentivise the application of new technologies that promote clean and environmentally friendly processes.     

Regional differences and influencing factors in the CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> emissions of China’s power industry based on the panel data models considering power-consuming efficiency factor

With the economic development, China has become the largest CO₂ emissions country. China’s power industry CO₂ emissions accounted for about 50% of total CO₂ emissions. Therefore, exploring major drivers of CO₂ emissions is critical to mitigating its CO₂ emissions in power industry. Many studies considered the time series model to analyze the national influences factors of CO₂ emissions. But this paper focuses on regional differences in CO₂ emissions and adopts panel data models to explore the major impact factors of CO₂ emissions in the power industry at the regional and provincial perspectives. The results indicate economic growth level plays a dominant role in reducing CO₂ emissions. The power-consuming efficiency on the demand side has large potential to mitigate CO₂ emissions, but its influences are different in three regions. The impacts of the electric power structure on CO₂ emissions decline from the eastern region to the central and western regions. The influence of urbanization and industrialization also has significant regional differences. Therefore, the governments should consider the influencing factors and regional differences and formulate appropriate policies to decrease CO₂ emissions in the power industry.     

A subsystem input–output decomposition analysis of CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> emissions in the service sectors: a case study of Beijing,China

The carbon emissions in service sectors have attracted increasing attention around the world. However, few studies have examined the driving forces for CO₂ emissions from service sectors in developing countries. With the process of accelerating industrialization, China’s service sectors are facing growing pressure to pursue energy savings and emission reductions, especially in several developed regions. In this paper, in order to better understand how CO₂ emissions in Beijing’s service sectors have evolved, we utilized a subsystem input–output decomposition analysis to study the pattern and driving factors of consumption-based emissions in Beijing’s service sectors. The results showed that the transportation sector and the Scientific Studies Technical Services sector caused the most CO₂ emissions in Beijing’s service sectors. The emission intensity effect potentially reduced CO₂ emissions by 10,833 Mt, primarily due to the decreased energy intensity of non-service sectors. Effects of demand and technology were mainly responsible for the increased CO₂ emissions in Beijing’s service sectors. Such influence was mainly related to the external component of service sectors, indicating a strong pull effect exerted by service sectors on non-service sectors. Thus, decarbonizing the supply chain of service sectors and improving the energy intensity are necessary to alleviate CO₂ emissions in Beijing.     

Movement towards a low carbon emitted environment: a test of some factors in Malaysia

There exists a high global concern in different nations on environmental sustainability especially at the focal stage of increased economic growth and development process due to high level of environmental degradation and pollution. The major aim of this study was to empirically examine how to minimise carbon emissions (CO₂) in Malaysia which are mainly caused by energy production, fossil fuel consumption, population density and economic growth. The study adopted the method of autoregressive distributed lag bound testing approach to analyse the data for the period 1971–2011. The study found that economic growth in Malaysia has a direct relationship with CO₂ emissions in both the short run and the long run. Similarly, there is a positive relationship between fossil fuel consumption and CO₂ emissions over the same period. Population density was found to have positive impacts on CO₂ emissions. Contrarily, the relationship between the activities of energy production and pollution is negative in the long run. The study recommends that a targeted GDP growth rate should be set with the consideration to avoid more environmental pollution. In addition, the positive impact of fossil fuel consumption on the environmental pollution implies that there is a need to make and implement policies that will encourage the use of public transportation system more than private transportations. That is, the unnecessary use of private vehicles should be discouraged in order to reduce the extent of fossil fuel consumption.     

The relationship between population and the environment and its impact on sustainable development in Egypt using a multi-equation model

The relationship between population and the environment is a significant issue due to its impact on chances for achieving sustainable development, especially in developing countries. Previous studies on this relationship have primarily focused on the impact of population growth on the environment, while the impact of the environment on population has received less attention, where most of these studies have used single-equation models (SEM) in their analysis. In order to capture the interrelationship between population growth and the environment, and both its direct and indirect effects on the potential for achieving sustainable development, SEM may not be appropriate. This paper takes a step forward in providing such empirical evidence, by developing a multi-equation model based on the recursive equation system in order to empirically examine the relationship between population growth and the environment in terms of air pollution represented by increased CO₂ emissions, health level represented by the mortality and morbidity due to air pollution, and labour productivity represented by GDP per hour worked, and using a time series data set for Egypt during the period of 1950–2010. Quantitatively, the current study finds that (1) In Egypt, a 1% increase in population raises the CO₂ emissions by 2.4%. (2) An increase in CO₂ emissions by 1% is associated with an increase in deaths due to outdoor air pollution (respiratory and cardiovascular diseases) by 2.5%. (3) Poor health due to air pollution leads to a decrease in labour productivity by 1.58%. (4) The impact of population growth on chances for sustainable development depends on how much the rise in air pollution decreases labour productivity through raising the rate of morbidity. (5) Even when rapid population growth rate plays a minor role in creating a specific problem, such as its indirect negative impact on labour productivity and thus economic growth, population management policies may still constitute a viable measure for dealing with that problem, especially with respect to policy intervention cost. The study argues that population growth in Egypt negatively affects the state’s ability to achieve sustainable development via its negative impact on the environment. Environmental degradation in turn leads to adverse effects on population, particularly with regard to public health. These negative effects on health lead to lower labour productivity, and thus hinder the state’s ability to sustain development.     

On the Nexus of SO<Subscript>2</Subscript> and CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> emissions in China: the ancillary benefits of CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> emission reductions

This paper examines the issue of ancillary benefits by linking sulfur dioxide (SO₂) emission to CO₂ emission using a panel of 29 Chinese provinces over the period 1995–2007. In the presence of non-stationarity and cointegrating properties of these two data series, this paper applies the panel cointegration techniques to examine both the long-run and short-run elasticities of SO₂ with respect to CO₂. The major findings are that: (1) there exhibits a stable long-run equilibrium relationship between the SO₂ and CO₂ emission with the long-run elasticity being 2.15; (2) there exists a short-run relationship between these two emissions with the short-run elasticity being 0.04. In addition, following an exogenous shock that causes a deviation from the long-run equilibrium, it would take approximately 15 years for SO₂ emission to revert toward the long-run equilibrium path with an average annual convergence rate of 6.5%; (3) the derived ancillary benefits that is generated from one metric ton of CO₂ emission reduction, are 11.77 Yuan (approximately US1.7) in the short run and 196.16 Yuan (US 1.7) in the short run and 196.16 Yuan (US 30) in the long run. These findings are not only crucial from the econometric modeling perspective, but also have important policy implications.     

CO2 emission driving forces and corresponding mitigation strategies under low-carbon economy mode: evidence from China’s Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region

On account of the background of China’s “new normal” characterized by slower economic growth, this paper analyses the low-carbon economy status quo in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region and empirically investigates the relationship between carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions and its various factors for China’s Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region using panel data econometric technique. We find evidence of existence of Environmental Kuznets Curve. Results also show that economic scale, industrial structure, and urbanization rate are crucial factors to promote CO₂ emissions. However, technological progress, especially the domestic independent research and development, plays a key role in CO₂ emissions abatement. Next, we further analyze the correlation between each subregion and various factors according to Grey Relation Analysis. Thereby, our findings provide important implications for policymakers in air pollution control and CO₂ emissions reduction for this region.     

Energy, environment and growth nexus in South Asia

The present study investigates the energy, environment and growth nexus for a panel of South Asian countries including Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal. The simultaneous analysis of real GDP, energy consumption and CO₂ emissions is conducted for the period 1980–2010. Levin panel unit root test and Im test panel unit root both indicate that all the variables are I (1). In addition, Kao’s panel Cointegration test specifies a stable long-term relationship between all these variables. Empirical findings show that a 1 % increase in energy consumption increases output by 0.81 % in long run whereas for the same increase in CO₂ emission output falls by 0.17 % in long run. Panel Granger causality tests report short-run causality running from energy consumption to CO₂ emissions and from CO₂ emissions to GDP.     

The win-win pathway of economic growth and CO2 emission reduction: a case study for China

ABSTRACT

Continuously reducing the CO₂ intensity of GDP is the core strategy for developing countries to realize the dual targets of economic growth and CO₂ emissions reduction. The measures are twofold: one is to strengthen energy saving and decrease energy intensity of GDP and the other is to promote energy structural decarbonization and reduce CO₂ intensity of energy consumption. In order to control global temperature rise no more than 2°C, the decrease in CO₂ intensity of GDP needs surpass 4% before 2030, but it could be merely about 2% based on the current trend. Therefore, all countries ought to speed up the low-carbon transition in energy and economy. As for China, keeping a continuous decline in CO₂ intensity of GDP of 4%–5% will ensure the realization of the NDC objectives, and also promotes the early peaking of CO₂ emissions before 2030. China will play a positive leading role in realizing a win-win low-carbon development coordinating sustainable development and climate change mitigation.     

Human well-being, the global emissions debt, and climate change commitment

Energy consumption is fundamentally necessary for human well-being. However, although increasing energy consumption provides substantial improvements in well-being for low and intermediate levels of development, incremental increases in consumption fail to provide improvements for “super-developed” countries that exhibit the highest levels of development and energy consumption. The aim of this note is, therefore, to quantitatively explore the global emissions debt and climate change commitment associated with the gap in energy consumption between the energy-saturated super-developed countries and the rest of the world. Adopting Kates’ identity, I calculate that elevating the current populations in the non-super-developed countries to the energy and carbon intensities of the United States is akin to adding the fossil-fuel CO₂ emissions of more than 15 United States to the global annual total, implying cumulative emissions of almost 4000 GT CO₂ from 2010 through 2050. The inevitability of continued emissions beyond 2050 suggests that the transition of non-super-developed countries to a US-like profile between now and 2050 could, by itself, plausibly result in global warming of 3.2 °C above the late-twentieth century baseline, including an extremely high likelihood that global warming would exceed 1.2 °C. Global warming of this magnitude is likely to cause regional climate change that falls well outside of the baseline variations to which much of the world is presently accustomed, meaning that a US-like energy-development pathway carries substantial climate change commitment for both non-super-developed and super-developed countries, independent of future emissions from the super-developed world. However, the assumption that all countries converge on the minimum energy intensity of the super-developed world and a carbon-free energy system between now and 2050 implies cumulative CO₂ emissions of less than 1000 GT CO₂ between 2010 and 2050, along with a less than 40 % probability of exceeding 1.2 °C of additional global warming. It is, therefore, possible that intensive efforts to develop and deploy global-scale capacity for low-carbon energy consumption could simultaneously ensure human well-being and substantially limit the associated climate change commitment.     

Carbon and energy taxation for CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> mitigation: a CGE model of the Malaysia

Malaysia has made a pledge to reduce voluntarily her carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO₂-e) gas emission’s intensity of gross domestic product by up to 40 % based on 2005 levels by 2020. The country is considering implementing economic instruments, among others, to assist the achievement of emission reduction targets while contributing towards the nation’s energy security and sustainable development goals. This paper develops a computable general equilibrium model with explicit energy-emission linkages to appraise the economy-wide and welfare impacts of carbon and energy tax policies to reduce CO₂ emissions in Malaysia. Results indicate that the negative macroeconomic impacts of carbon and energy taxes are small relative to the quantum of emission reduction. A Hicksian welfare criterion is utilized to determine the impact of revenue natural shifts in carbon and energy taxes. Revenue neutrality assumptions show that carbon taxation is the best choice when it can provide a double dividend if the generated revenue is used for the purpose of consumption subsidy on household purchases. The notion of the double dividend is confirmed when the change in the consumption structure will result in a welfare improvement, while CO₂ emission is decreased effectively. The study also found that carbon tax policy results in greater emission reductions relative to energy taxes, while the use of renewable energy will increase more substantially.     

HDPI: A Framework for Pollution-Sensitive Human Development Indicators

The aim of this study is to draw up a framework for pollution-sensitive human development indicators, which we refer to as HDPI. The method used to determine HDPI is based on that used for human development index (HDI) drawn up annually since 1990 by the UNDP. The novelty lies in the incorporation into 'HDI of an environmental factor, measured in terms of CO₂ emissions from industrial processes per capita. HDPI penalises those countries which have obtained growth in income at the expense of damaging the environment. A particular case for these indicators is used to draw up a pollution sensitive human development index for 165 countries for which data are available, for the period from 1993 to 1998. The results obtained in this case are analysed.     

Social cost of environmental pollution and application of counter measures through clean development mechanism: in the context of developing countries

The developing countries i.e., the non-Annex-I countries (parties to the Kyoto Protocol but not responsible to any reduction target yet) in the Kyoto Protocol whose economies are in transition are also allowed to reduce GHG emissions. Among these, the countries that have accepted the Kyoto Protocol may be benefited from CDM projects to promote sustainable development. The developed countries i.e., the Annex-I countries (that have signed the Kyoto Protocol & are responsible to have specific GHG emission reduction target) or the investing countries, in return, have privilege to purchase CER credits (in units equivalent to one tonne of CO₂ gas emission reduction) to meet the emission target as specified in the Kyoto Protocol. The key step in understanding about CDM is to grasp the concept of “baseline” and “additionality”. The “Baseline” is the emissions level that would have existed if a CDM project had not happened. The feature of an approved CDM project is that the planned reductions would not occur without the additional incentive provided by emission reduction credits; this concept is known as “Additionality”. According to environmental additionality concept, baseline emission minus project emission is equal to emissions reduction. “Investment Additionality,” ultimately rejected during negotiation of the “Marrakech Accords” and “Financial Additionality,” are the two important concepts. The concept of trading of CER matches to the idea of Pigovian tax (equal to the negative externality and which is considered one of the “traditional” means of bringing a modicum of market forces) in Economics, making pollution more costly to the polluter, as the polluters have negative cost since they save money by polluting; hence, there are supposed negative externalities associated with the market activity. Economic theory predicts that in an economy where the cost of reaching mutual agreement between parties is high and where pollution is diffuse, Pigovian tax will be an efficient way to promote the public interest and will lead to an improvement of the quality of life measured by the Genuine Progress Indicator and other human economic indicators, as well as higher gross domestic product growth. We can seek a level of pollution such that the marginal savings (MS) to one polluting unit from pollution (−MC) is equal to marginal damage (MD) from pollution over the entire population, since pollution is a public bad i.e., MS (x*) = ∑MD_i (x*) where ∑D_i (x) is the total damage. Though the responsibility of reduction in emission does not lie on the non-Annex-I countries, still effort of maintaining global emission balance can be expected equally from developed and developing countries. The responsibilities of Kyoto Protocol are (a) to reduce global GHG emissions, (b) to bring about sustainable development in the developing countries lie on above two groups since its effect on February 16, 2005. Different polluters have different costs of pollution control. The least costly way of controlling pollution from various sources that reflects different costs of pollution control making the set of environmental regulations to achieve the emission target at the lowest cost makes the regulation cost-effective. Though efficiency is not attainable for many regulations, cost-effectiveness is attainable.     

Energy consumption,emissions and economic growth in Bahrain

This study examines the Granger causality relationships between economic growth, energy consumption and emissions, from 1980 to 2007 in Bahrain, controlling for capital and urban population using Toda and Yamamoto’s approach. It was found that there is unilateral causality which runs from urban population, economic growth, capital and energy consumption to environment. Further, we found strong support for causality running from economic growth to energy consumption, emissions and capital. The existence of these linkages suggests that the government of Bahrain may pursue energy efficiency strategies and carbon emissions reduction policy in the long run without impeding economic growth. Additionally, the long run pursuit of high economic growth given sustained increases in energy efficiency may also reduce CO₂ emissions intensity per unit of her GDP.     

Effects decomposition: separation of carbon emissions decoupling and decoupling effort in aggregated EU-15

The ecological burden of economic growth is a highly discussed issue. In this article, we focus on the set of European Union (EU) 15 countries in the period 1995–2014. We first decomposed emissions into six effects and afterward the decoupling-effort index was used to calculate the magnitude of impact that each factor has on it, considering the country group. For the group of the EU-15 in the pre-Kyoto period, CO₂ changes are only negative in 1998 and 1999 considering the initial view (with respect to the base year of 1995), being positive for all the other years. This positive effect means increased emissions, for which many contributed the positive and significant effects of income per capita and the population effects. The most significant reductions in CO₂ changes are verified in the years after the effective Kyoto commitment and observed mainly in the alternative view (year to year changes), for which many contributed the negative and significant effects of carbon intensity of petroleum products, energy intensity and conversion efficiency in the overall period. The effects elasticity decoupling and decoupling effort do not seem to be controlled by the internal drivers of CO₂ emissions. Policy makers should bet in policy instruments pointed in the sense of strengthening energy efficiency, in reducing petroleum products consumption and therefore dependency and on the structure of added value generated by the economy.     

Effect of lifestyle changes and consumption patterns on environmental impact: a comparison study of Pakistan and China

Increased economic development and industrialization put strain on environment, hence causing pollution and destroying ecosystem. Generally, many different factors affect the environment. These factors include GHG emissions, deforestation, and others. These are all related to human activities on Earth. Other factors that affect environment include population, consumption patterns, and changing life styles of people due to increased income. This study involves the comparison analysis of Pakistan and China on the basis of environmental impact caused by some major driving factors. China is the second largest CO₂ emitter in the world with a population of 1.37 billion in 2016 and the second largest economy in the world. Pakistan is ranked as 40th on the basis of nominal GDP. Both the countries observed noticeable growth in economic development for over 55 years, i.e. 1960–2016. This study identifies how population, affluence, consumption, and emissions as the major factors affect environmental pollution and use ImPACT equation, or I = PACT, to calculate the environmental impact and to determine which factors affect the environment the most. The study suggests that the people of both China and Pakistan have experienced increased income for the past 50 years and this increase has led to the changes in their lifestyles, from suitable clothing and quality food to comfortable living and increased energy consumption, thus affecting environment.     

Causality relationship between CO2 emissions,GDP and energy intensity in Tunisia

This article analyzes the causality between the economic growth, the energy and the environment, measured by CO₂ emissions. Our empirical study is based on a series of annual data from 1980 to 2010 in Tunisia. Our study was conducted using the Granger causality test and variance decomposition. The empirical results confirm the presence of a positive effect between the energy consumption and the economic growth measured by gross domestic product (GDP). Thus, there is a unidirectional relationship between GDP and CO₂ emissions in the short term. This analysis shows, as is common to relatively fast-growing economies in Tunisia, that the biggest contributor to the rise is CO₂ emissions. Hence, in congruence with the result of variance decomposition, the GDP affects CO₂ emissions in the short and medium term at an almost constant level (10 %). The non-renewable energy intensity in Tunisian economy is responsible for a modest reduction in CO₂ emissions, which suggests the implementation of conservation policies aimed at energy efficiency and the orientation toward renewable energy.