No abstract

this paper uses panel cointegration techniques and Granger causality tests toinvestigate the dynamic causal links between per capita renewable energy consumption, agricultural value added (AVA), carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions, and real gross domestic product (GDP) for a panel of five North Africa countries spanning the period 1980-2011. In the short-run, the Granger causality tests show the existence of a bidirectional causality between CO 2 emissions and agriculture, a unidirectional causality running from agriculture to GDP, a unidirectional causality running from GDP to renewable energy consumption, and a unidirectional causality running from renewable energy consumption to agriculture. In the long-run, there is bidirectional causality between agriculture and CO 2 emissions, a unidirectional causality running from renewable energy to both agriculture and emissions, and a unidirectional causality running from output to both agriculture and emissions. Long-run parameter estimates show that an increase in GDP and in renewable energy consumption increase CO 2 emissions, whereas an increase in agricultural value added reduces CO 2 emissions. As policy recommendation, North African authorities should encourage renewable energy consumption, and especially clean renewable energy such as solar or wind, as this improves agricultural production and help to combat global warming.

Abstract:We use the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds approach to cointegration in order to investigate the short and long-run relationship between per capita CO 2 emission, GDP, renewable and non-renewable energy consumption and trade openness for Tunisia during the period 1980-2009. The Fisher-statistic for cointegration is established when CO 2 emission is defined as a dependent variable. The stability of coefficients in the long and short-run is examined. Short-run Granger causality suggests that there is a one way causality relationship from economic growth and trade openness (exports and imports) to emissions, whereas there is no causality running from renewable and non-renewable energy consumption to emissions. The results from the long-run relationship suggest that nonrenewable energy consumption contributes positively in explaining CO 2 emission (for both models), whereas renewable energy affects CO 2 emission negatively (for the model with exports). The contribution of trade openness is positive and statistically significant in the long-run. The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) that assumes an inverted U-shaped relationship between per capita CO 2 emissions and output is not supported in the long-run. This means that Tunisia has not yet reached the required level of per capita GDP to get an inverted U-shaped EKC.

Nowadays, tourism plays an important role in most countries as the number of international tourists has considerably expanded (United Nations Environment Program 2011). The tourism sector represents an important part of the world gross domestic product (GDP), employs directly and indirectly an important proportion of the global work force, represents an important share in total exports, and foreign direct investment (FDI) represents an important source of world's tourism investment. The expansion of this sector resulted in an increase in fossil energy consumption and in important green house gas (GHG) emissions. However, investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy related to the touristic sector seem generating significant returns within a short payback