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Transition From Economic Growth-Energy Use To Green Growth-Energy Towards Environmental Quality

Posted on:2024-04-22Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:Jean Pierre NAMAHOROFull Text:PDF
GTID:1521307148984579Subject:Application of the economy
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
Several existing studies have widely examined the link between energy consumption,economic growth,and environmental determinants(CO2 emissions)regionally and globally across development levels.Other studies focused on CO2 emissions determinants while renewable energy consumption is utilized as the regulator for controlling non-renewable energy uses.Mixed results were associated with contradicting conclusions,which led to ineffective policy implications available.This is due to one part of energy noted to promote CO2 emissions,the mixed effect of renewable energy uses on CO2emissions illustrated.Furthermore,economic growth was noted to positively promote CO2 emissions and negatively promote CO2 emissions,which was denoted as the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis(EKC).While examining the nexus of environmental degradation determinants and control variables,various econometric estimators were employed and presented some methodological deficiencies.In this case,on the other hand,The World Bank,Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD),and the United Nations Environment Program(UNEP)initiated the decoupling of economic growth and CO2 emission to achieve green growth policy toward environmental quality across the regional levels and global levels.Other policies were proposed such as transforming traditional economic production function into bio-economic production function,which relying on bio-energy,bio-industry,bio-agricultural,and ecosystem indicators.However,very few studies conducted at the African level overlooked the difference in regions and income levels of the countries involved in the research on energy-economic growth and CO2 emissions,while the evaluation of green growth policy coupled with green energy technologies towards environmental quality was left behind by researchers.This has led to the reasonable increment of CO2 emissions and its determinants while harming public health development and sustainable development across Africa,although bio-economic production function involving bio-technological advancement is being implemented at the initial stage.Therefore,this dissertation aimed to assess the transition from economic growth and energy consumption to green growth coupled with green energy use towards environmental quality across the African continent from 1980 to 2018.From this main aim,this dissertation is divided into four main parties initiated by the theoretical and conceptual frameworks,consisting of variables description and connections,whereas firstly,we empirically examined the long-run impact of energy intensity,renewable energy consumption,and economic growth on CO2 emissions across regions and income levels over 50 African countries.In the second part,we estimated the long-run impact of green growth and green energy use on CO2 emissions across the African countries which declared the implementation of green growth policy coupled with green energy technologies at regional levels and global levels over the panel of 62 countries.This section led to the third part of the dissertation,which is the comparative analysis of the green growth policy’s impact on environmental degradation before and after the policy implementation.In the fourth part,based on our findings and previous results from several studies,we proposed effective policies and areas of implementation towards environmental quality and green growth policy across the African continent and other global regions.To achieve the main aim of this dissertation,the conceptual and theoretical framework together with the testing framework(cross-sectional dependence,CIPS panel unit,and cointegration tests),estimation framework(most recent panel estimators,such as pooled mean group(PMG),cross-sectional augmented distributed lags,CS-DL,and common corrected effect means group,CCEMG,and causality tests),and impulse response and variance decomposition analysis were employed to access to which extent regressors exert on the variable of interest.Last but not least,the differences-in-differences approach was employed to detect the performance of green growth coupled with green energy use on CO2 emissions reduction across the nominated countries.The findings of the whole dissertation are organized into three parts and the fourth part is for the policy implications as follows:From the first part,the findings from the testing framework initiated by the presence of cross-sectional dependence implied that all variables contain cross-sectional dependence across regions and income levels and at the panel of 50 African countries.The panel unit root hypothesis has been rejected at the levels and first differencing across regions and income levels in all variables and at the panel of 50 African countries.The cointegration test results revealed that cointegration exists among the variables across regions and income levels,and at the panel of 50African countries.In the estimation framework,panel estimators revealed that renewable energy consumption contributed to mitigating CO2 emissions,while energy intensity intensively contributed to increasing emissions across regional and income levels,and at the panel of African countries.Economic growth appeared to negatively affect CO2emissions at the African level,while the effect was mixed across regional levels and income levels.The causality test confirmed feedback or two-way directional causations between CO2 emissions and its determinants in Africa,some regions,and income levels.And yet,unidirectional causation was highly supported across regional and income levels.Moreover,findings from impulse response and variance decomposition analysis indicated that both energy intensity and economic growth counted higher variations of CO2emissions,while renewable energy consumption highly contributed to reducing CO2emissions within 10 years.In the second part of this dissertation,we examined the effect of green growth represented by domestic materials consumption,and green energy technologies represented by renewable energy consumption on CO2 emissions,which represents the environmental proxy.The testing framework results revealed that the cross-sectional dependence exists among variables and panel unit root results showed that the unit root hypothesis was rejected at levels and first differences operator.The cointegration test confirmed the presence of long-run relationships between variables.The findings revealed that green energy use and domestic materials consumption contribute to CO2emissions depletion across African countries and at regional and global levels.Domestic material consumption(DMC)as a green growth indicator has a positive and insignificant impact on CO2 emissions before the green growth policy implication,while after this policy,domestic material consumption negatively and insignificantly affects CO2emissions in African countries.The change from positive impact to negative impact shows that the green growth policy implementation has a positive contribution to reducing CO2 emissions in Africa in favor of environmental quality.The results from the third part obtained by differences-in-differences estimations oppose these findings and revealed that regression coefficients are very small and statistically insignificant in the case of the African region.Similarly,green growth technologies based on the adoption of using renewable energy as a response to CO2emissions have a negative and significant effect on CO2 emissions before and after green growth policy implementation in all considered African countries.This negative and significant impact becomes higher after introducing green growth policy implementation in Africa.The results also indicated that there is a slight improvement to reduce CO2 due to the green growth coupled with green energy technologies towards environmental quality across regional and global levels.Moreover,a two-way directional causal relationship between CO2 and domestic materials consumption and green energy was noted at the global level,and highly supported in regions,and one-way directional and neutral causations have been supported in some regions.Our findings in all parties of this dissertation grasp new insight into countries’development,income levels,and regions for regional and government policymakers related to effectively mitigating CO2 emissions towards environmental quality.Green growth policy coupled with green energy technologies has a vital role in mitigating CO2emissions.Although the transition from economic growth and energy use to green growth and green energy is seen in a few countries across the globe,its reasonable contribution towards environmental quality is viable across the countries that adapted it from its initiation.Based on our findings and supports from previous studies,several effective policies and associated areas of implementation are detailed in chapter seven.Some of these policies are:Facilitating the transition to green technology;proposed green growth policies;green policies to sustain the recovery;the nature and extent of sectoral re-allocation from green growth policies;facilitating the re-allocation of capital and labor resources across sectors;concerns of international competitiveness;income distribution concerns;and renewables installation and production and its impact on co2 emissions.Therefore,this dissertation offers the potential policy implications to reduce CO2emissions towards environmental quality across the African continent and global level.Renewable energy projects coupled with regional energy markets could serve as the main factor of CO2 emissions reduction,which can be implemented in green energy technologies in all African countries.Last but not least,this dissertation highlights further studies that can be conducted in country-specific,regional,and global studies by employing additional possible factors that lead to CO2 emissions,such as Urbanization,deforestation,and others.
Keywords/Search Tags:Economic growth, Environmental quality, Green growth policy, CO2 emissions, Energy consumption, Green energy, Econometric models, Africa
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