The current rise of protectionism has become the main uncertainty associated with global energy, economy, and the environment. Furthermore, the decoupling carbon emissions from economic growth is crucial for implementing Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). These INDCs would be discounted if decreasing carbon emissions would require sacrificing economic growth. This study explored the effect of protectionism (by measuring trade openness based on available data) on the decoupling carbon emissions from economic growth. For this, the heterogenous effects of trade openness on carbon emissions were investigated using in data of 182 countries from 1990 to 2015. The results show that trade openness decreased carbon emissions in high-income and upper-middle-income countries, while having no significant impact on carbon emissions of lower-middle-income countries; even worse, for low-income countries, trade openness increased carbon emissions. The heterogeneous effects of trade openness on carbon emissions indicate that trade openness positively impacts the decoupling economic growth from carbon emission in rich countries, but negatively impacts poor countries. In addition, increasing individual incomes and population distort the decoupling economic growth from carbon emissions. Renewable energy and high oil prices contributed to the decoupling economic growth from carbon emissions. These effects are similar in all countries. Targeted policy implications are presented that enable the decoupling economic growth from carbon emissions for countries with different income levels.

China is the first major economy to show a recovery after a slowdown induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. This work aims to explore what the China’s economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic means for the economic growth and energy consumption of the other countries using the global VAR quarterly data. In the long term, spillover effects of China's economic growth have the most obvious impact on upper-middle-income countries’ economic growth (0.17%), followed by the economic growth of lower-middle-income countries (0.16%) and high-income countries (0.15%). However, the spillover effect of China’s economic growth has the most significant impact on energy consumption in high-income countries (0.11%∼0.45%), followed by energy consumption in upper-middle-income countries (0.08%∼0.33%) and in lower-middle-income countries (-0.02%∼0.05%). Our results indicate upper-middle-income countries will benefit the most from China’s economic recovery post-COVID-19, followed by lower-middle-income countries and high-income countries. The spillover effect of China’s economic recovery post-COVID-19 brings the most obvious impact on the increase in energy consumption in high-income countries, followed by middle-income countries. It also should be noted that the spillover effect of China's economic growth does not necessarily lead to an increase in energy consumption lower-middle-income countries. Generally, the spillover effect of China’s economic recovery on other countries’ economic growth is much more than other countries’ energy consumption.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract