IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bdr/borrec/1254.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Unveiling the critical role of forest areas amidst climate change: The Latin American case

Author

Listed:
  • Juan David Alonso-Sanabria
  • Luis Fernando Melo-Velandia
  • Daniel Parra-Amado

Abstract

Although greenhouse gas emissions from the Latin America (LAC) region are not particularly significant, climate change is a worldwide challenge. Hence, we analyze the main factors that increase and mitigate emissions in LAC countries by emphasising the importance of preserving and safeguarding forested regions. To do that, we estimate a Panel Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square model for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru by using a sample period between 1970 and 2018. We find that an increase of 1% in forested area leads to a reduction of CO2 (Kt per capita) emissions by 0.23 %. From the policy perspective, our findings draw attention towards the promotion of reforestation and afforestation initiatives. Furthermore, these long term policies will hold substantial significance, given the region’s immense potential, with more than a fifth of the world’s forest reserves. **** RESUMEN: Aunque las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero de la región de América Latina (LAC) no son particularmente significativas, el cambio climático es un desafío mundial. En este documento analizamos los principales factores que aumentan y mitigan las emisiones en los países de LAC enfatizando la importancia de preservar y salvaguardar las áreas forestales. Para hacer eso, estimamos un modelo panel de mínimos cuadrados ordinarios completamente modificados para Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, México y Perú utilizando un período de muestra entre 1970 y 2018. Encontramos que un aumento de 1% en el área forestal conduce a una reducción de las emisiones de CO2 (Kt per cápita) en un 0,23%. Desde la perspectiva de las políticas públicas, nuestros hallazgos llaman la atención hacia la promoción de iniciativas de reforestación y forestación. Además, estas políticas a largo plazo tendrían una importancia sustancial, dado el inmenso potencial de la región, con más de una quinta parte de las reservas forestales del mundo.

Suggested Citation

  • Juan David Alonso-Sanabria & Luis Fernando Melo-Velandia & Daniel Parra-Amado, 2023. "Unveiling the critical role of forest areas amidst climate change: The Latin American case," Borradores de Economia 1254, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
  • Handle: RePEc:bdr:borrec:1254
    DOI: 10.32468/be.1254
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.32468/be.1254
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.32468/be.1254?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. LAWSON, Laté A. & MARTINO, Roberto & NGUYEN-VAN, Phu, 2020. "Environmental convergence and environmental Kuznets curve: A unified empirical framework," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 437(C).
    2. Alix-Garcia, Jennifer & Janvry, Alain de & Sadoulet, Elisabeth, 2005. "A Tale of Two Communities: Explaining Deforestation in Mexico," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 219-235, February.
    3. You, Wanhai & Lv, Zhike, 2018. "Spillover effects of economic globalization on CO2 emissions: A spatial panel approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 248-257.
    4. Caviglia-Harris, Jill L. & Chambers, Dustin & Kahn, James R., 2009. "Taking the "U" out of Kuznets: A comprehensive analysis of the EKC and environmental degradation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(4), pages 1149-1159, February.
    5. Apergis, Nicholas & Payne, James E., 2009. "CO2 emissions, energy usage, and output in Central America," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 3282-3286, August.
    6. Phillips, Peter C B, 1995. "Fully Modified Least Squares and Vector Autoregression," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(5), pages 1023-1078, September.
    7. Jaunky, Vishal Chandr, 2011. "The CO2 emissions-income nexus: Evidence from rich countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 1228-1240, March.
    8. Pedroni, Peter, 2004. "Panel Cointegration: Asymptotic And Finite Sample Properties Of Pooled Time Series Tests With An Application To The Ppp Hypothesis," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 597-625, June.
    9. Kaddour Hadri, 2000. "Testing for stationarity in heterogeneous panel data," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 3(2), pages 148-161.
    10. J. C. Burgess, 1998. "Economic analysis of deforestation in Mexico," Chapters, in: The Economics of Environment and Development, chapter 10, pages 183-222, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Grossman, G.M & Krueger, A.B., 1991. "Environmental Impacts of a North American Free Trade Agreement," Papers 158, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Public and International Affairs.
    12. Muhammad Shahbaz & Mantu Kumar Mahalik & Syed Jawad Hussain Shahzad & Shawkat Hammoudeh, 2019. "Testing the globalization-driven carbon emissions hypothesis: International evidence," International Economics, CEPII research center, issue 158, pages 25-38.
    13. Frodyma, Katarzyna & Papież, Monika & Śmiech, Sławomir, 2022. "Revisiting the Environmental Kuznets Curve in the European Union countries," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    14. Wang, Yuan & Han, Rong & Kubota, Jumpei, 2016. "Is there an Environmental Kuznets Curve for SO2 emissions? A semi-parametric panel data analysis for China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 1182-1188.
    15. Chazdon, Robin L. & Wilson, Sarah J. & Brondizio, Eduardo & Guariguata, Manuel R. & Herbohn, John, 2021. "Key challenges for governing forest and landscape restoration across different contexts," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    16. Calvin, Katherine V. & Beach, Robert & Gurgel, Angelo & Labriet, Maryse & Loboguerrero Rodriguez, Ana Maria, 2016. "Agriculture, forestry, and other land-use emissions in Latin America," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 615-624.
    17. Niklas Höhne & Michel den Elzen & Joeri Rogelj & Bert Metz & Taryn Fransen & Takeshi Kuramochi & Anne Olhoff & Joseph Alcamo & Harald Winkler & Sha Fu & Michiel Schaeffer & Roberto Schaeffer & Glen P., 2020. "Emissions: world has four times the work or one-third of the time," Nature, Nature, vol. 579(7797), pages 25-28, March.
    18. Jonah Busch & Jens Engelmann & Susan C. Cook-Patton & Bronson W. Griscom & Timm Kroeger & Hugh Possingham & Priya Shyamsundar, 2019. "Potential for low-cost carbon dioxide removal through tropical reforestation," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 9(6), pages 463-466, June.
    19. Destek, Mehmet Akif & Ulucak, Recep & Dogan, Eyüp, 2018. "Analyzing the Environmental Kuznets Curve for the EU countries: The role of ecological footprint," MPRA Paper 106882, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Pablo-Romero, M.P. & Cruz, L. & Barata, E., 2017. "Testing the transport energy-environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis in the EU27 countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 257-269.
    21. Salari, Mahmoud & Javid, Roxana J. & Noghanibehambari, Hamid, 2021. "The nexus between CO2 emissions, energy consumption, and economic growth in the U.S," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 182-194.
    22. Joakim Westerlund, 2005. "New Simple Tests for Panel Cointegration," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 297-316.
    23. Peter Pedroni, 2000. "Fully Modified OLS for Heterogeneous Cointegrated Panels," Department of Economics Working Papers 2000-03, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    24. Managi, Shunsuke & Kumar, Surender, 2009. "Trade-induced technological change: Analyzing economic and environmental outcomes," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 721-732, May.
    25. Buhari DOĞAN & Osman DEĞER, 2018. "The role of economic growth and energy consumption on CO2 emissions in E7 countries," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania / Editura Economica, vol. 0(2(615), S), pages 231-246, Summer.
    26. Sapkota, Pratikshya & Bastola, Umesh, 2017. "Foreign direct investment, income, and environmental pollution in developing countries: Panel data analysis of Latin America," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 206-212.
    27. Juan-Javier MORENO-MORENO & Francisco VELASCO MORENTE & Maria Teresa SANZ DIAZ, 2018. "Assessment of the operational and environmental efficiency of agriculture in Latin America and the Caribbean," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 64(2), pages 74-88.
    28. Kijima, Masaaki & Nishide, Katsumasa & Ohyama, Atsuyuki, 2010. "Economic models for the environmental Kuznets curve: A survey," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(7), pages 1187-1201, July.
    29. Acheampong, Alex O., 2018. "Economic growth, CO2 emissions and energy consumption: What causes what and where?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 677-692.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Juan David Alonso-Sanabria & Luis Fernando Melo-Velandia & Daniel Parra-Amado, 2023. "Connecting the Dots: Renewable Energy, Economic Growth, Reforestation, and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Colombia," Borradores de Economia 1252, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    2. Wilmer Martínez-Rivera & Eliana R. González-Molano & Edgar Caicedo-García, 2023. "Forecasting Inflation from Disaggregated Data: The Colombian case," Borradores de Economia 1251, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    3. Ozcan, Burcu, 2013. "The nexus between carbon emissions, energy consumption and economic growth in Middle East countries: A panel data analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 1138-1147.
    4. Abidin Öncel & Ali Kabasakal & Aziz Kutlar & Samet Acar, 2024. "Energy consumption, economic growth and Ecological footprint relationship in the top Russian energy importers: a panel data analysis," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 26(8), pages 21019-21052, August.
    5. Hamit-Haggar, Mahamat, 2012. "Greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption and economic growth: A panel cointegration analysis from Canadian industrial sector perspective," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 358-364.
    6. Olimpia Neagu, 2020. "Economic Complexity and Ecological Footprint: Evidence from the Most Complex Economies in the World," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-18, October.
    7. Muhammad Shahbaz & Avik Sinha, 2019. "Environmental Kuznets curve for CO2emissions: a literature survey," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 46(1), pages 106-168, January.
    8. Lazăr, Dorina & Minea, Alexandru & Purcel, Alexandra-Anca, 2019. "Pollution and economic growth: Evidence from Central and Eastern European countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 1121-1131.
    9. Misbah Sadiq & Desti Kannaiah & Ghulam Yahya Khan & Malik Shahzad Shabbir & Kanwal Bilal & Aysha Zamir, 2023. "Does sustainable environmental agenda matter? The role of globalization toward energy consumption, economic growth, and carbon dioxide emissions in South Asian countries," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 76-95, January.
    10. Abdul Rauf & Xiaoxing Liu & Waqas Amin & Ilhan Ozturk & Obaid Ur Rehman & Suleman Sarwar, 2018. "Energy and Ecological Sustainability: Challenges and Panoramas in Belt and Road Initiative Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-21, August.
    11. Igor Petruška & Eva Litavcová & Jana Chovancová, 2022. "Impact of Renewable Energy Sources and Nuclear Energy on CO 2 Emissions Reductions—The Case of the EU Countries," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(24), pages 1-23, December.
    12. Jun, Wen & Mughal, Nafeesa & Zhao, Jin & Shabbir, Malik Shahzad & Niedbała, Gniewko & Jain, Vipin & Anwar, Ahsan, 2021. "Does globalization matter for environmental degradation? Nexus among energy consumption, economic growth, and carbon dioxide emission," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    13. Roxana Pincheira & Felipe Zuniga, 2021. "Environmental Kuznets curve bibliographic map: a systematic literature review," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(S1), pages 1931-1956, April.
    14. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Sinha, Avik, 2019. "Environmental Kuznets Curve for CO2 emission: A survey of empirical literature," MPRA Paper 100257, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2019.
    15. Neil A. Wilmot & Ariuna Taivan, 2021. "Examining the Impact of Financial Development on Energy Production in Emerging Economies," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-17, February.
    16. Apergis, Nicholas & Payne, James E., 2011. "The renewable energy consumption-growth nexus in Central America," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 343-347, January.
    17. Selim J rgen Ergun & Maria Fernanda Rivas, 2020. "Testing the Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis in Uruguay using Ecological Footprint as a Measure of Environmental Degradation," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 10(4), pages 473-485.
    18. Myo Myo Htike & Anil Shrestha & Makoto Kakinaka, 2022. "Investigating whether the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis holds for sectoral CO2 emissions: evidence from developed and developing countries," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(11), pages 12712-12739, November.
    19. António Afonso & Christophe Rault, 2010. "What do we really know about fiscal sustainability in the EU? A panel data diagnostic," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 145(4), pages 731-755, January.
    20. Rodríguez, Miguel & Pena-Boquete, Yolanda & Pardo-Fernández, Juan Carlos, 2016. "Revisiting Environmental Kuznets Curves through the energy price lens," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 32-41.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    CO2 emissions; Forestry; Reforestation; Panel FMOLS; Emisiones de CO2; Áreas forestales; reforestación;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C33 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • Q23 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Forestry
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
    • E20 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bdr:borrec:1254. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Clorith Angélica Bahos Olivera (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/brcgvco.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.