The relationship between pollutant emissions, renewable energy, nuclear energy and GDP: empirical evidence from 18 developed and developing countries

ABSTRACT

This document investigates the causal relationship between nuclear energy (NE), pollutant emissions (CO₂ emissions), gross domestic product (GDP) and renewable energy (RE) using dynamic panel data models for a global panel consisting of 18 countries (developed and developing) covering the 1990–2013 period. Our results indicate that there is a co-integration between variables. The unit root test suggests that all the variables are stationary in first differences. The paper further examines the link using the Granger causality analysis of vector error correction model, which indicates a unidirectional relationship running from GDP per capita to pollutant emissions for the developed and developing countries. However, there is a unidirectional causality from GDP per capita to RE in the short and long run. This finding confirms the conservation hypothesis. Similarly, there is no causality between NE and GDP per capita.

KEYWORDS:

• Pollutant emissions
• renewable energy
• nuclear energy
• GDP
• VECM
• Granger causality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 It should be noted that only equations where the null hypothesis of no co-integration is rejected will be estimated within the Granger causality framework. Hence, no ECM will be estimated for the equation where the CO₂ variable is set as a dependent variable, since no co-integrating relationship was found.