CO2 emissions, economic growth, and the environmental Kuznets curve in China: What roles can nuclear energy and renewable energy play?

By Kangyin Dong, Renjin Sun, Hong-Dian Jiang, Xiangang Zeng. Journal of Cleaner Production, 2018

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Abstract The aim of this study is to investigate the dynamic causal links among per capita carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, per capita gross domestic product (GDP), per capita fossil fuels consumption, per capita nuclear energy consumption, and per capita renewable energy consumption within the framework of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) for the case of China. To do so, a series of econometric techniques allowing for structural break is utilized for the period of 1993–2016. The empirical results confirm the existence of the EKC for CO2 emissions in China. The estimated turning point (TP) of China's EKC for CO2 emissions is calculated as 96,680.47 yuan and is expected to reach its peak by approximately 2028. The empirical results also indicate that, in both the short and long run, nuclear energy and renewable energy play important roles in mitigating CO2 emissions, while fossil fuels consumption is indeed the dominant culprit for promoting CO2 emissions. Furthermore, the mitigation impact of nuclear energy consumption on CO2 emissions is considerably smaller than that of renewable energy consumption, implying that renewable energy will be the main contributor to CO2 emissions mitigation in China. Finally, several important policy implications for mitigating China's CO2 emissions and promoting growth in the nuclear energy and renewable energy industries are provided.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Environmental Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/98f200db2a042a809b6f665a259fe02f95a02cb6

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Citations in the corpus

Determinants of the global and regional CO2 emissions: What causes what and where? (2019, methodology): “…emissions; Nonrenewable and renewable energies; KIFs; STIRPAT model; Global and regional analysis JEL CLASSIFICATION C23; Q20; Q30; Q56 I. Introduction As the main greenhouse gas, the world has witnessed rapidly increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the past few decades (Dong et al. 2018a).”
The renewable energy consumption-environmental degradation nexus in Top-10 polluted countries: Fresh insights from quantile-on-quantile regression approach (2020, background): “For instance, Farhani and Shahbaz (2014) investigated the association between CO2 emissions, consumption of electricity generated from renewable and non-renewable sources, and output for 10 MENA economies.”