Search

We empirically examine the effects of overseas aggregate aid and energy aid inflows on renewable and non-renewable electricity production in selected BRICS countries (i.e., Brazil, India, China, and South Africa) from 1995 to 2015. Economic growth, foreign direct investment inflows, and trade openness are control variables in electricity production functions. The results from employing fully modified ordinary least square and dynamic OLS techniques indicate that economic growth, inflows of aggregate aid, energy aid, and foreign direct investment promote renewable electricity production, while trade openness reduces it. We also find that aggregate aid and energy aid inflows reduce the non-renewable electricity production, while economic growth, foreign direct investment inflows, and trade openness promote it. Moreover, our study is unique and adopts different panel estimators, ensuring the robustness of the research findings. Our findings suggest that the BRICS economies' march towards a sustainable environment becomes possible if policymakers, in their climate mitigation policy, encourage greater investments of overseas aggregate aid and energy aid inflows toward renewable electricity production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For accelerating economic growth, the role of electricity production and consumption is undeniable. Thus, the economic growth aspect of electricity consumption has already been well established in the literature. However, the attainment of sustainable economic growth has become an important concern for most countries; mere focus on electricity consumption on economic growth is not sufficient. As a result, impact of electricity production from various sources on economic growth and environmental quality needs to be explore in detail to give direction towards sustainable economic growth. Hence, this study aims to evaluate the impact of electricity production from various sources on Japan's economic growth and environmental quality, spanning from 1966 to 2014. The study used the ARDL bounds testing approach of cointegration to establish the long-run relationship between the variables under consideration. The outcomes emanated from the bound test show the presence of a long-run relationship among the studied variables. Furthermore, the ARDL-based long-run result indicates that electricity generation from coal is not viable for the economy and environment, whereas electricity production from hydro, natural gas, nuclear, and oil sources is found to be viable since it improves the economy and environmental quality in Japan. The robustness of the long-run results is further confirmed by using the fully modified OLS (FMOLS). Therefore, policy formulation related to electricity generation in Japan has to be taken care of both the economic growth and environmental quality angle. Furthermore, the measures for curbing coal based electricity needs to give profound significance while making electricity policy in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between renewable energy consumption, urbanization, human capital, trade, natural resources, and material footprint for BRICS countries from 1990 to 2016. We apply the cross-sectional dependency test to check the correlation among the cross-section. Then, we use the second-generation panel test like CADF and CIPS to check the stationary in the series. After that, we go for the panel cointegration test, i.e., Pedroni and Westerlund panel cointegration, to know the long-run relationship of the variables. The test results reject the null hypothesis of no cointegration among the variables and accept cointegration. The long-run results indicate that economic growth, natural resources, renewable energy, and urbanization have reduced the environmental quality for BRICS countries in case of material footprint employed to measure environmental degradation. However, foreign trade and human capital improve environmental quality. Based on the empirical results, the study recommended some important policy suggestions to achieve sustainable development in BRICS countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research paper tries to explore the existence of the environmental Kuznets curve in New Zealand by taking annual time series data from 1970 to 2017. The study also considers other variables like trade openness, financial development, and foreign direct investment. Depending on the nature of the selected variables, the study has utilized the autoregressive distributed lag(ARDL) model to explore the cointegration among the variables. The result verifies the existence of the long-run cointegration among the variables. Further, it confirms the presence of the environmental Kuznets curve. The estimated result also shows that trade openness, financial development, and foreign direct investment improves the environmental quality. Moreover, to verify the environmental Kuznets curve visually, we have plotted the CO2 emissions and economic growth, and the scatter plot exhibits an inverted U–shaped relationship between CO2 emissions and economic growth. The turnaround point of the plot with a single break is in 1987. These findings give a wide range of policies for economic growth and environmental quality in New Zealand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]