Urbanization and industrialization have significant impacts on energy consumption and CO2 emissions, but their relationship varies at different stages of economic development. Taking cognizance of heterogeneity and the “ratchet effect,” this paper adopts the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology (STIRPAT) framework as a starting point and re-estimates the relationship using different panel date models. The main results are obtained by dynamic panel threshold regression models, which divide a balanced panel dataset of 73 countries over the period of 1971–2010 into four groups according to their annual income levels. The key results are: (1) in the low-income group, urbanization decreases energy consumption but increases CO2 emissions; (2) in the middle-/low-income and high-income groups, industrialization decreases energy consumption but increases CO2 emissions, while urbanization significantly increases both energy consumption and CO2 emissions; (3) for the middle-/high-income group, urbanization does not significantly affect energy consumption, but does hinder the growth of emissions; while industrialization was found to have an insignificant impact on energy consumption and CO2 emissions; (4) from the population perspective, it produces positive effects on energy consumption, and also increases emissions except for the high-income group. These novel methodology and findings reveal that different development strategies of urbanization and industrialization should be pursued depending on the levels of income in a bid to conserve energy and reduce emissions.

Impacts of urbanization and industrialization on energy consumption/CO2 emissions: Does the level of development matter?

This study examines the relationship between urbanization, energy consumption, foreign direct investment (FDI), and carbon dioxide (CO2) emission of 17 countries in the South and Southeast Asian (SSEA) region during the period 1980–2012. In order to find out the intensity of CO2 emission in 17 countries, we classify the total sample countries into three sub-groups, namely high, middle, and low-income countries. These three sub-panels are constructed based on their gross national income per capita of countries. Pedroni cointegration result shows that urbanization; primary energy consumption, FDI, and CO2 emission are cointegrated in all sub-groups of countries, regardless of their levels of national income per capita. Furthermore, while incorporating the fossil fuel energy consumption in place of primary energy consumption in the alternative specification of regression, the result suggests a cointegrating relationship between fossil fuel energy consumption, FDI, urbanization, and CO2 emission in middle-income countries. Nevertheless, Westerlund cointegration results are more or less in the line of Pedroni results. Furthermore, the results reveal that primary energy consumption, fossil fuel energy consumption, and FDI are substantially affecting the CO2 emission in the SSEA region. Moreover, the empirical findings suggest that in middle-income countries, both primary and fossil fuel energy consumption are considerably increasing the CO2 emission, and leading to greenhouse gas problem in the SSEA region.

The effect of urbanization, energy consumption, and foreign direct investment on the carbon dioxide emission in the SSEA (South and Southeast Asian) region

Pursuit of excellence in economic development, in the midst of damaging the natural environment, is a shameless growth. The economic impacts on environmental degradation are quite visible in industrialized economies where human health is compromised by rapid economic growth and energy induced emissions. This study examines the interrelationship between energy consumption, economic growth and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions under the six alternative and plausible hypothesis including Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), Pollution Haven Hypothesis (PHH), population based emissions (IPAT), energy led emissions, sectoral growth emissions and Emissions emancipated Human Development Index (eHDI) in the context of low and middle income countries, high income countries and in aggregated panel, over the period of 1975–2015. The results supported the EKC hypothesis, IPAT hypothesis, energy induced emissions, and sectoral growth emissions in different regions of the world, while PHH and eHDI hypothesis does not confirm across regions. This study exclusively determines the key socio-economic and environmental problems in a large pool of the world economies to understand the need of development policy agenda for sustainable growth.

Energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions and economic development: Evaluating alternative and plausible environmental hypothesis for sustainable growth

Heterogeneous green innovations and carbon emission performance: Evidence at China's city level

Significant difference in the emission–renewables nexus across countries with different income levels is frequently ignored in previous studies. To empirically investigate whether the effect of renewable energy consumption on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions differs across countries with different income levels, the emission–growth–renewables nexus for a global panel of 120 countries and four income‐based subpanels over the period 1995–2015 is examined. Fully considering the potential cross‐sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity, a series of econometric techniques allowing for cross‐sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity is utilised. Cross‐sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity are confirmed for the global panel as well as for all four subpanels. Only for the global panel, high‐income subpanel and upper‐middle‐income subpanel is the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis valid. Renewable energy consumption has a negative effect on CO2 emissions, but its effect is not significant; the mitigation effect may be obscured by higher economic growth and increasing non‐renewable energy consumption. The global panel and four subpanels provide mixed directionality of causality among the variables, suggesting that for various income‐based subpanels, significant differences exist in the effect of renewable energy consumption on CO2 emissions, especially highlighting in various direct and indirect influencing paths between renewable energy consumption and CO2 emissions.

How renewable energy consumption lower global CO2 emissions? Evidence from countries with different income levels

https://isiarticles.com/bundles/Article/pre/pdf/49092.pdf

Bin Xu

Papers

How industrialization and urbanization process impacts on CO2 emissions in China: Evidence from nonparametric additive regression models

Can expanding natural gas consumption reduce China's CO2 emissions?

Assessing the development of China's new energy industry

Do we really understand the development of China's new energy industry?

Effective ways to reduce CO2 emissions from China's heavy industry? Evidence from semiparametric regression models