Energy consumption, economic growth and CO2 emissions in Middle East and North African countries

• Published in: Energy policy 2012-06, Vol.45, p.342-349
• Main Authors: Arouri, Mohamed El Hedi, Ben Youssef, Adel, M'henni, Hatem, Rault, Christophe
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Air pollution caused by fuel industries; Applied sciences; carbon dioxide; Carbon dioxide emissions; Carbon emissions; econometrics; Economic data; Economic development; Economic growth; Economic inequality; Economics; Economics and Finance; Energy; Energy consumption; Energy economics; Energy. Thermal use of fuels; Environmental impact studies; Environmental Kuznets Curve; Exact sciences and technology; General aspects; General, economic and professional studies; greenhouse gas emissions; Gross domestic product; Growth; Humanities and Social Sciences; Hypothesis; income; Kuznets, Simon; Metering. Control; Methodology. Modelling; Middle East; North Africa; Panel data; time series analysis
• ISSN: 0301-4215; 1873-6777
• DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2012.02.042

This article extends the recent findings of Liu (2005), Ang (2007), Apergis et al. (2009) and Payne (2010) by implementing recent bootstrap panel unit root tests and cointegration techniques to investigate the relationship between carbon dioxide emissions, energy consumption, and real GDP for 12 Middle East and North African Countries (MENA) over the period 1981–2005. Our results show that in the long-run energy consumption has a positive significant impact on CO2 emissions. More interestingly, we show that real GDP exhibits a quadratic relationship with CO2 emissions for the region as a whole. However, although the estimated long-run coefficients of income and its square satisfy the EKC hypothesis in most studied countries, the turning points are very low in some cases and very high in other cases, hence providing poor evidence in support of the EKC hypothesis. CO2 emission reductions per capita have been achieved in the MENA region, even while the region exhibited economic growth over the period 1981–2005. The econometric relationships derived in this paper suggest that future reductions in CO2 emissions per capita might be achieved at the same time as GDP per capita in the MENA region continues to grow. ► We study the links between CO2 emissions, energy consumption and GDP in MENA region. ► Energy consumption has a positive correlation with CO2 emissions. ► GDP exhibits a quadratic relationship with CO2 emissions for the region as a whole. ► However, the turning points are low in some cases and high in other cases. ► Thus, not all countries need to sacrifice economic growth to decrease CO2 emissions.