The Imperativeness of Environmental Quality in China Amidst Renewable Energy Consumption and Trade Openness

Abstract

It is widely accepted that CO2 emissions are the primary cause of climate change and environmental destruction. China, the world’s biggest carbon emitter, is the subject of this research. Utilizing the wavelet tools (wavelet correlation, wavelet coherence, multiple wavelet coherence, and partial wavelet coherence), the present study intends to capture the time-frequency dependence between CO2 emissions and renewable energy, economic growth, trade openness, and energy usage in China between 1965 and 2019. The advantage of the wavelet tools is that they can differentiate between short, medium, and long-run dynamics over the period of study. Furthermore, the study utilized the gradual shift causality test to capture the causal interconnection between CO2 emissions and the regressors. The findings from Bayer and Hanck showed a long-run relationship among the variables of interest. Furthermore, the findings from the wavelet coherence test revealed a positive relationship between CO2 emissions and economic growth and energy usage at all frequencies. Although there is a weak negative relationship between renewable energy and CO2 emissions in the short run, there is no significant co-movement between CO2 emissions and trade openness. The outcomes of the partial and multiple wavelet coherence also give credence to the outcomes of the wavelet coherence test. Lastly, the gradual shift causality test revealed a one-way causality from energy usage and economic growth to CO2 emissions. Based on the findings, suitable policy suggestions were proposed.

Modeling the Dynamic Linkage between Renewable Energy Consumption, Globalization, and Environmental Degradation in South Korea: Does Technological Innovation Matter?

“…This demonstrates that EC can predict CO 2 emissions in the long term. This result complies with the study of Soylu et al [26] for China, Oluwajana et al [27] for South Africa, and Zhang et al [46] for Malaysia. In the medium and short term, the null hypothesis of no causal linkage from GDP to CO 2 is rejected at a 5% and 10% level of significance.…”

“…This is unsurprising considering that the economy of South Korea is predominantly an investment-oriented and manufacturing economy that strongly depends on the use of energy; nevertheless, altering the energy mix to include more renewable choices including wind and solar energy has the capability to minimize CO 2 emissions. This outcome complies with the studies of Kirikkaleli and Adebayo [40] for India, Soylu et al [26] for India, Orhan et al [25] for China, Tufail et al [45] for highly decentralized economies and Bekun et al [23] for Indonesia who established that GDP triggers CO 2 emissions positively. Energy use impacted CO 2 emissions positively in South Korea which implies that a 1.09% upsurge in CO 2 emissions is due to a 1% increase in the utilization of energy when other indicators are kept constant.…”

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

“…The hydroelectricity consumption and CO 2 data were obtained from the British petroleum database, while urbanization and GDP data were gathered from the database of World Bank. In line with the studies of [13,30,40], we added GDP into the model. Moreover, following the studies of [17,29], we incorporated the URB into the model.…”

“…The study of Awosusi et al [29] in South Korea on the association between CO 2 and globalization, utilization of energy, and energy use using data from 1965 to 2019 showed that globalization and GDP triggers CO 2 . In China, Soylu et al [13] assessed the CO 2 -GDP-REC association using the novel wavelet coherence and causality approaches. The outcomes from their study showed that renewable energy use mitigates CO 2 while GDP increases CO 2 .…”

“…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].…”