Do agriculture-based economies mitigate CO2 emissions? : Empirical evidence from five SAARC countries
International Journal of Energy Sector Management
ISSN: 1750-6220
Article publication date: 14 January 2020
Issue publication date: 19 March 2020
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to fill the gap in income-environment literature by adding agricultural contribution to the nexus. The authors investigate the short-run and long-run impact of agricultural contribution, renewable energy consumption, real income, trade liberalisation and urbanisation on carbon emissions for a balanced panel of five South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries spanning the period 1990-2013.
Design/methodology/approach
Pedroni and Kao cointegration techniques have been used to test the existence of long-run relationship between the variables. The directions of causal relationships have been verified using Granger causality tests. Further, the long-run parameters of the baseline equation have been estimated by using the fully modified ordinary least squares, the technique developed by Pedroni, (2001a) for heterogeneous cointegrated panels.
Findings
The result reveals that agricultural contribution and renewable energy consumption improve environmental quality in the long run, while urbanisation and per capita real income degrade it. The study did not find any evidence of “pollution heaven hypothesis” in the selected countries. The Granger causality tests confirm bidirectional causality between carbon emissions and income and between carbon emissions and urbanisation. In addition, there is unidirectional causality running from agricultural contribution to renewable energy consumption.
Originality/value
This is the only study to investigate the role of agriculture sector in carbon mitigation from a panel of South Asian economies. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is also the first study to test the applicability of “pollution heaven hypothesis” for SAARC countries.
Keywords
Citation
Dar, J.A. and Asif, M. (2019), "Do agriculture-based economies mitigate CO2 emissions? : Empirical evidence from five SAARC countries", International Journal of Energy Sector Management, Vol. 14 No. 3, pp. 638-652. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJESM-01-2019-0011
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited