Contribution of Renewable Energy Consumption to CO2 Emission Mitigation: A Comparative Analysis from a Global Geographic Perspective

Yexi Zhong,Jing Lei,Chundi Chen,Junsong Jia,Xu Song

doi:10.3390/su13073853

Abstract

Renewable energy consumption (REC) has an important significance in mitigating CO2 emissions. However, currently, few scientists have analyzed the underlying impact of REC from a global geographic perspective. Thus, here, we divide the world into seven regions to study this impact during the period 1971–2016 using the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI). These regions were East Asia and the Pacific (EAP), Europe and Central Asia (ECA), Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), Middle East and North Africa (MENA), North America (NA), South Asia (SA), and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The results showed that ECA had the most obviously mitigating effect of −10.13%, followed by NA and MENA (−3.91% and −3.87%, respectively). Inversely, EAP had the largest driving effect of 4.12%, followed by SA (3.43%) and the others. Globally, REC had an overall mitigating contribution of −11.04% to total CO2 change. These results indicate that it is still important to exploit and utilize renewable energy, especially in presently developing or underdeveloped countries. Moreover, for some countries at a certain stage, their REC effects were negative, but, concurrently, their energy intensity effects were positive. These results show that some developing countries recently reduced carbon emissions only by extensively using renewable energy, not by enhancing energy-use efficiency. Finally, some policy implications for reducing CO2 in different countries are recommended.

Highlights

With the growth of world population and economic development, global energy consumption has increased sharply since the industrial revolution [1,2]
These results show that the population increase effect was the most important driver of carbon emission growth for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries, followed by the energy intensity effect and the economic output effect
The CO2 emission change and the effects of the decomposed drivers from seven different regions by their geographical locations for five different periods are shown in East Asia and the Pacific (EAP): The CO2 emissions of EAP increased by 1023.86 million tonnes (Mt), with a change of 5.59% to total CO2 growth and an average annual change rate of 0.62% in the first stage (Figure 5a, Tables 6 and 7)

Summary

Introduction

With the growth of world population and economic development, global energy consumption has increased sharply since the industrial revolution [1,2]. The fact that the consumption growth of renewable or nonfossil energy (e.g., hydro, wind, solar energy, geothermal energy, biomass energy) can achieve the goal of reducing carbon emissions, to some extent, has been noticed by the academic community [9,10,11]. Focusing on the nexus between renewable or nonfossil energy consumption (REC or NFEC) and CO2 emission, some core literature can be retrieved from the WOS (web of science) database (Table 1). It can be seen that most studies have concluded the increasing REC/NFEC can reduce regional carbon emissions or improve air quality by controlling/decreasing carbon emissions [12,13,14].

Results

Discussion

Conclusion