scholarly journals The Effect of Renewable and Nuclear Energy Consumption on Decoupling Economic Growth from CO2 Emissions in Spain

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 2124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariola Piłatowska ◽  
Andrzej Geise ◽  
Aneta Włodarczyk

This study examines the relationship between renewable and nuclear energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions and economic growth by using the Granger causality and non-linear impulse response function in a business cycle in Spain. We estimate the threshold vector autoregression (TVAR) model on the basis of annual data from the period 1970–2018, which are disaggregated into quarterly data to obtain robust empirical results through avoiding a sample size problem. Our analysis reveals that economic growth and CO2 emissions are positively correlated during expansions but not during recessions. Moreover, we find that rising nuclear energy consumption leads to decreased CO2 emissions during expansions, while the impact of increasing renewable energy consumption on emissions is negative but insignificant. In addition, there is a positive feedback between nuclear energy consumption and economic growth, but unidirectional positive causality running from renewable energy consumption to economic growth in upturns. Our findings do indicate that both nuclear and renewable energy consumption contribute to a reduction in emissions; however, the rise in economic activity, leading to a greater increase in emissions, offsets this positive impact of green energy. Therefore, a decoupling of economic growth from CO2 emissions is not observed. These results demand some crucial changes in legislation targeted at reducing emissions, as green energy alone is insufficient to reach this goal.

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 812
Author(s):  
Mariola Piłatowska ◽  
Andrzej Geise

This study explores the impact of clean energy and non-renewable energy consumption on CO2 emissions and economic growth within two phases (formative and expansion) of renewable energy diffusion for three selected countries (France, Spain, and Sweden). The vector autoregression (VAR) model is estimated on the basis of annual data disaggregated into quarterly data. The Granger causality results reveal distinctive differences in the causality patterns across countries and two phases of renewables diffusion. Clean energy consumption contributes to a decline of emissions more clearly in the expansion phase in France and Spain. However, this effect seems to be counteracted by the increases in emissions due to economic growth and non-renewable energy consumption. Therefore, clean energy consumption has not yet led to a decoupling of economic growth from emissions in France and Spain; in contrast, the findings for Sweden evidence such a decoupling due to the neutrality between economic growth and emissions. Generally, the findings show that despite the enormous growth of renewables and active mitigation policies, CO2 emissions have not substantially decreased in selected countries or globally. Focused and coordinated policy action, not only at the EU level but also globally, is urgently needed to overhaul existing fossil-fuel economies into low-carbon economies and ultimately meet the relevant climate targets.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 114
Author(s):  
Samia Gmidene ◽  
Saida Zaidi ◽  
Sonia Zouari Ghorbel

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the causal relationship among renewable energy, nuclear energy consumption, economic growth, and CO2 emissions for selected OECD countries over the period 1980 to 2013. All variables are found to be cointgrated.Results of Granger causality show long-run relationship from GDP, renewable energy consumption and nuclear energy consumption to CO2 emissions, from CO2 emissions, GDP, to renewable energy consumption, from emissions, GDP to renewable energy, and from CO2 emissions GDP and nuclear energy consumption.In short run, results show that there exists bidirectional causality between GDP and CO2 emissions, and unidirectional causality running from renewable energy consumption to GDP. Also unidirectional causality running from renewable energy consumption to CO2 emissions without feedback but no causality running from nuclear energy consumption to CO2 emissions was found. This evidence suggests that renewable energy can help to mitigate CO2 emissions, but so far, nuclear energy consumption has not reached a level where it can CO2 emissions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1264
Author(s):  
Montassar Kahia ◽  
Anis Omri ◽  
Bilel Jarraya

This article extends the previous studies on environmental economics literature by examining a possible relationship between economic growth, green energy, and environmental quality. Specifically, this article investigated the three-way linkage between economic growth, renewable energy, and environmental quality in the case of Saudi Arabia using the simultaneous equation modeling approach over the period of 1990–2016. The following are the main findings obtained: (i) a unidirectional causal impact of economic growth on renewable energy consumption was found, confirming the conservation hypothesis; (ii) bidirectional relationships between economic growth and CO2 emissions and between CO2 emissions and renewable energy consumption were also found; (iii) the failure of renewable energy in Saudi Arabia to close the gap between growing the economy and protecting the environment in Saudi Arabia; (iv) the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis was supported. Policy implications are also discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 129 ◽  
pp. 09005
Author(s):  
Natalia Davidson ◽  
Elizaveta Maksimova ◽  
Oleg Mariev

Research background: Fossil fuels are used at such a high rate that they are currently being depleted. Moreover, they are associated with a greenhouse effect leading to global warming. Meanwhile, green energy is naturally replenished and fosters sustainable development (Nelson and Starcher, 2015). However, the empirical evidence of the impact of green energy on economic growth is controversial (Adewuyi and Awodumi, 2017; Chen et al., 2020; Destek and Aslan, 2017; Zafar et al., 2018). Purpose of the article: This paper analyses the impact of renewable energy consumption on economic growth in the European Union (EU) countries. This is important in line with the goals of EU to shift towards green energy during the coming years (Directive (EU) 2018/2001). Methods: We use data of the World Bank and Our World in Data over 1990 to 2015 for 28 EU countries. We estimate the impact of renewable energy consumption on the countries’ gross domestic product. The control variables are labor force, research and development, and foreign direct investment. We apply the pooled mean group, mean group, the dynamic fixed effect estimators (Pesaran, 1997; Pesaran et al., 1999), and generalized method of moments (Arellano & Bond, 1991). Findings & Value added: Results show that the renewable energy consumption positively affects economic growth of the EU countries. We contribute by shedding light on the possibility to develop renewable energy, while achieving economic growth. The results have important implications for economic policy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 696-713 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrícia H. Leal ◽  
Antonio Cardoso Marques ◽  
Jose Alberto Fuinhas

Purpose Australia is one of the ten largest emitters of greenhouse gases but stands out from the others due to its economic growth without recession for 26 consecutive years. This paper aims to focus on the energy-growth nexus and the effects of energy consumption on the environment in Australia. Design/methodology/approach This analysis is performed using annual data from 1965 to 2015 and the autoregressive distributed lag model. Findings The paper finds empirical evidence of a trade-off between economic growth and carbon dioxide (CO2) intensity. The results show that increased gross domestic product (GDP) in Australia increased investment in renewable energy sources (RESs), although the renewable technology is limited and has no impact on reducing CO2 intensity in the long run. In contrast to investment in RES, fossil fuels, coal and oil, are decreased by GDP. However, oil consumption increased renewable energy consumption, and this reflects the pervading effect of the growing economy. Originality/value Overall, this paper contributes to the literature by analysing the behaviour of both energy consumption and the environment on the growing Australian economy. In addition, this paper goes further by studying the impact of economic growth on renewable and non-renewable energy consumption, as well as on CO2 emissions. The study is conducted on a single country for which literature is scarce, using a recent approach and a long time period.


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