Carbon Dioxide Emissions, Energy Consumption and Economic Growth: A Comparative Empirical Study of Selected Developed and Developing Countries. “The Role of Exergy”

Raúl Arango-Miranda,Sara Ibarra-Zavaleta,Robert Hausler,Rabindranarth Romero-Lopez,Mathias Glaus

doi:10.3390/en11102668

Abstract

Diverse factors may have an impact in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions; thus, three main contributors, energy consumption, gross domestic product (GDP) and an exergy indicator are examined in this work. This study explores the relationship between economic growth and energy consumption by means of the hypothesis postulated for the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). Panel data for ten countries, from 1971 to 2014 have been studied. Despite a wide gamma of research on the EKC, the role of an exergy variable has not been tested to find the EKC; for this reason, exergy analysis is proposed. Exergy analyses were performed to propose an exergetic indicator as a control variable and a comparative empirical study is developed to study a multivariable framework with the aim to detect correlations between them. High correlation between CO2, GDP, energy consumption, energy intensity and trade openness are observed, on the other hand not statistically significant values for trade openness and energy intensity. The results do not support the EKC hypothesis, however exergy intensity opens the door for future research once it proves to be a useful control variable. Exergy provides opportunities to analyze and implement energy and environmental policies in these countries, with the possibility to link exergy efficiencies and the use of renewables.

Highlights

The growing consumption trends of modern societies increase the pressure on manufacturing to satisfy such demands [1]
This study analyzes the relationship between carbon dioxide emissions, energy consumption and economic growth, with addition of an exergetic control variable to test the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis
Followed by a descriptive statistical analysis based on a statistical generalized linear model (GLM)

Summary

Introduction

The growing consumption trends of modern societies increase the pressure on manufacturing to satisfy such demands [1]. The growing request of fossil fuels as the main source of energy is triggering environmental degradation, that is without a doubt, one of the most pressing global atmospheric challenges experienced by developed and developing countries in 21st century in the form of greenhouse gases (GHG), global warming (GW) and climate change (CC) [2]. In this growing trend of economies, over the past few decades, countries were transitioning from agriculture to Energies 2018, 11, 2668; doi:10.3390/en11102668 www.mdpi.com/journal/energies. As part of this effort, at industrial level the CO2 emissions are broadly used to represent the environmental performance of a firm [12]

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Conclusion