The Paradoxical Relationship between Renewable Energy and Economic Growth: A Cross-National Panel Study, 1990-2013

Abstract

This cross-national study employs a time-series cross-sectional Prais-Winsten regression model with panelcorrected standard errors to examine the relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growth, and its impact on total carbon dioxide emissions and carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP. FindingsDriven primarily by anthropogenic causes, the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is at levels not observed for at least the past 800,000 years, if not longer (IPCC 2014a: 4). The concentration of greenhouse gases (GHG), particularly CO2, will continue to alter the climate system, placing a disproportionate amount of stress on the poor and marginalized (IPCC 2014a:13). Fossil fuel combustion and industrial production are the largest contributors, leading many analysts to place a prodigious emphasis on decarbonizing the electricity and energy sector (IPCC 2014:28;Obama 2017; World Bank 2010:14). The ecological contradictions of fossil fuel use and production processes have been closely tied to a global, capitalist system that is based on exponential growth and profit accumulation (Foster, Clark, and York 2010). However, many policymakers and institutions have been reluctant to acknowledge or address the underpinnings and social relations of the macro-economic system on national and cross-national levels (see Obama 2017; OECD, World Bank, and United Nations 2012). In some quarters, promoting the deployment of renewable energy sources is a key strategy to mitigate carbon emissions (IPCC 2014b). However, scant attention has been given to macro-economic investigation of renewable energy and its relationship to various processes within the global economic system.

Renewable Energy Consumption, Education and Economic Growth in Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa

“…On the contrary, long run results show that economic growth increased renewable energy consumption in Tunisia Farhani, (2013) MENA countries FMOLS andDOLS (1975-2008) In the short run, no causality between renewable energy consumption and economic growth was found. Economic growth was found to have a positive influence on renewable energy consumption in the long run in the MENA region Thombs (2017) Developing countries…”

“…The first four hypotheses have so far been supported by empirical literature, for example (1) the renewable energy consumption spurred positive growth hypothesis (Tugcu and Topcu. 2018;Hung-Pin, 2014;Anwar et al, 2017;Fotourehchi, 2017;Alam et al, 2016;Dogan and Ozturk, 2017;Soava et al, 2018;Sharif et al, 2019;Halkos and Tzeremes, 2013;Solarin et al, 2017;Bobinaite et al, 2011;Nia and Niavand, 2017;Inglesi-Lotz, 2016;Khobai, 2018), (2) the renewable energy consumption spurred negative growth hypothesis (Lee and Jung, 2018;Thombs, 2017;Silva et al 2012), (3) the feedback effect (Shakouri and Yazdi, 2017;Clottey et al, 2018;Habib, 2015;Pao and Fu, 2013), (4) the neutrality hypothesis (Ozcan and OZturk, 2019;Marinas et al, 2018;Hassine This Journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License and Harrathi, 2017;Farhani, 2013;Bobinaite et al, 2011). The mixed views in the theoretical and empirical literature on the relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growth shows that the subject matter is still quite far from being conclusive.…”

Manufacturing the Urban Rift: Manufacturing as a Moderator of the Urbanization–CO2 Emissions Relationship, 2000–2013

“…However, as nations in Africa continue to urbanize, combined with the impetus for industrialists to seek out new geographical and structural spaces for cheap labor and less regulation, the urbanization-manufacturing relationship and its impacts on carbon emissions for nations in this region could become more pronounced in the future. Because the interpretation of continuous interaction terms can be relatively complicated, we report the urbanization and manufacturing slope coefficients at various levels of the moderator variable (the 1st, 25th, 50th, 75th, and 99th percentiles) (Thombs, 2017;UCLA Institute for Digital Research and Education, 2019). This approach allows for the slope coefficients of urbanization and manufacturing to be derived while the moderator is held constant.…”

Social science perspectives on drivers of and responses to global climate change

“…This finding, although superficially surprising, fits with a long tradition of research in technology studies which finds that technologies often have unanticipated consequences, due to interactions with social, economic, and political forces. Other sociological research suggests that interactions between the increasing use of renewable energy sources and economic growth may also lead to a tighter coupling of GDP to carbon emissions because renewables are more likely to be used to replace nuclear power than to replace fossil fuels, thus maintaining the dominance of fossil fuels as the base load electricity source (Thombs, 2017;York, 2016York, , 2017York & McGee, 2017).…”