The impact of renewable energy, trade, economic growth on CO₂ emissions in China

ABSTRACT

This study examines the linkage of per capita carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, real GDP, renewable and non-renewable energy use and trade (exports and imports) in China covering 1965–2016. Long-run estimates present the invalidation of inverted U-shaped hypothetical environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) in three models based on the equations of import, export, and trade openness (% of trade in GDP), respectively. Long-run Granger causalities exist in the equations of emissions, real GDP, and non-renewable energy, respectively. Non-renewable energy conservation policy not only affects economic activity, but also influences CO₂ emissions. The effect of renewable energy policy on CO₂ emissions reduction is a long-term process.

KEYWORDS:

• Emissions
• renewable
• trade
• economy
• Granger
• Kuznets

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Trade openness denotes percentage of trade in GDP, used by some authors [13,51,77–79].

Additional information

Funding

This study is supported by Department of Science and Technology of HeNan Province (No. 192400410095/202400410287) and Luoyang Normal University (No. 2018-PYJJ-019).