The relationship between energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and meteorological factors in Sfax (Tunisia): an ARDL bounds testing approach

ABSTRACT

The current analysis investigates the impact of energy consumption (EC) on environmental quality in the urban area of Sfax, Tunisia. First, we use electricity EC as a proxy for EC. Second, as an indicator of the degradation of the environmental quality, we use the following air pollutants: nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), ozone (O₃), sulfur dioxide (SO₂), and suspended particulates in the air having a diameter less than 10 micrometers (PM₁₀). We also analyse the influence of meteorological factors expressed by the temperature (T) and relative humidity (RH) on the dispersion of pollutants and their concentration in the atmosphere. We apply the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach. We find that EC stimulates the degradation of the environment; indeed, it leads to the amount of PM₁₀ in the atmosphere. Conversely, findings reveal that the increase of EC is associated with a decrease in the amount of SO₂, NO₂ and O₃. Additionally, meteorological factors, especially T and RH, affect the dispersion of pollutants and their accumulation around their emission sources.

KEYWORDS:

• Electricity consumption
• GHG emissions
• environmental degradation
• meteorological factors

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the editor and anonymous reviewer for their constructive and valuable suggestions which have greatly improved the quality of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The National Institute of Statistics of Tunisia, 2013.

2. A decrease in temperature (2–4 °C) can cause the formation of an inversion layer. In normal conditions, the air temperature decreases with altitude (about 1 °C each 100 meters). When hot air rises to the colder upper layers, it carries the pollutants which are thus dispersed vertically (balloon principle). Temperature inversions are special cases; for the atmosphere, instead of cooling with altitude, it warms up to a certain level called inversion level. At this level, a layer of deeper air is formed which is called the inversion layer. This layer prevents the pollutants from dispersing; there is no more vertical mixing. If the wind is low, the concentration of pollutants can then increase very rapidly.