Coal Consumption and Environmental Sustainability in South Africa: The role of Financial Development and Globalization

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate coal consumption and environmental sustainability in South Africa by examining the role of financial development and globalization by using a dataset covering the period from 1980 to 2017. The study utilized the Auto-regressive Distributed Lag Model (ARDL) approach in addition to the Bayer and Hank combined co-integration, fully modified Ordinary least squares (FMOLS), and Dynamic ordinary least Squares (DOLS). The study further utilized the frequency domain causality test to capture the causal linkage between the series. The advantage of the frequency domain causality is that it can capture causal linkages between series at different periods. The Bayer and Hanck co-integration and ARDL bounds tests reveal co-integration among the series. The empirical findings based on the ARDL long-run estimation reveal that a 1% increase in coal consumption increases environmental degradation by 1.077%, while a 1% increase in financial development decreases the environmental degradation by 0.973%. Furthermore, a 1% increase in economic growth decreases environmental quality by 1.449%. The outcomes of the FMOLS and DOLS approaches also provide supportive evidence for the ARDL long-run results. Furthermore, the results of the frequency domain causality test reveal that at a significance level of 1%, coal consumption Granger causes CO2 emissions at different frequencies, while financial development Granger causes CO2 emissions in the long run and short run at a significance level of 10%. In terms of policy suggestions, South Africa should embrace policies that encourage energy consumers to shift toward renewable energy. Furthermore, financial reforms should be implemented to curb environmental degradation

A Roadmap toward Achieving Sustainable Environment: Evaluating the Impact of Technological Innovation and Globalization on Load Capacity Factor

“…Their outcome elucidated that globalization increases the ecological footprint. Adebayo et al [ 31 ] established that globalization does not affect carbon emissions in South Africa. Likewise, the study of [ 32 ] in Malaysia confirmed that globalization does not affect the ecological footprint.…”

Dominance of Fossil Fuels in Japan’s National Energy Mix and Implications for Environmental Sustainability

“…The data generation phase is reflected in Equation (12). Y t = θ l Z t + e t, e t = β et−1 + e t, (12) where exogenous coefficients is depicted as Z t with ε t. ∼ IID N 0, σ 2 . However, two models namely Fracture, and trend are undertaken in the presence of a structural fracture.…”

“…Furthermore, the study of Grossman and Krueger [9] identified positive relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation. Several reports on the trade-off between economic development and environmental destruction have been published, including, Umar et al [10] for China, Adebayo et al [11] for South Korea, Oluwajana et al [12] for South Africa, Khan et al [13] for Pakistan, Usman et al [14] for the United States, Zhang et al [15] for Malaysia, and Adebayo et al [16] for Chile, among others.…”

Linking Economic Growth, Urbanization, and Environmental Degradation in China: What Is the Role of Hydroelectricity Consumption?

“…Notwithstanding the well-established studies, scholars have paid little attention to the influence of hydroelectricity on CO 2 emissions in China. Prior research looked at many pollution factors, such as energy usage and GDP [10][11][12][13][14], urban population [11,[15][16][17][18][19][20], financial development [21][22][23], and trade openness [24][25][26][27][28]. Furthermore, because CO 2 emissions account for more than 76 percent of GHGs emissions, the majority of researchers utilized CO 2 as an indication of degradation of the environment [19,25,28,29].…”