IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v63y2013icp1042-1050.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

CO2 emissions, energy consumption, income and foreign trade: A South African perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Kohler, Marcel

Abstract

The effect of trade liberalisation on environmental conditions has yielded significant debate in the energy economics literature. Although research on the relationship between energy consumption, emissions and economic growth is not new in South Africa, no study specifically addresses the role that South Africa's foreign trade plays in this context. A surprising fact given trade is one of the most important factors that can explain the environmental Kuznets curve. This study employs recent South African trade and energy data and modern econometric techniques to investigate this. The main finding of interest in this paper is the existence of a long run relationship between environmental quality, levels of per capita energy use and foreign trade in South Africa. As anticipated per capita energy use has a significant long run effect in raising the country's CO2 emission levels, yet surprisingly higher levels of trade for the country act to reduce these emissions. Granger causality tests confirm the existence of a positive bidirectional relationship between per capita energy use and CO2 emissions. Whilst the study also finds positive bidirectional causality between trade and income per capita and between trade and per capita energy use, it appears however that trade liberalisation in South Africa has not contributed to a long run growth in pollution-intensive activities nor higher emission levels.

Suggested Citation

  • Kohler, Marcel, 2013. "CO2 emissions, energy consumption, income and foreign trade: A South African perspective," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1042-1050.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:63:y:2013:i:c:p:1042-1050
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2013.09.022
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421513009464
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2013.09.022?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Halicioglu, Ferda, 2009. "An econometric study of CO2 emissions, energy consumption, income and foreign trade in Turkey," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 1156-1164, March.
    2. Wolde-Rufael, Yemane, 2009. "Energy consumption and economic growth: The experience of African countries revisited," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 217-224.
    3. Wolde-Rufael, Yemane, 2006. "Electricity consumption and economic growth: a time series experience for 17 African countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 1106-1114, July.
    4. Zhang, Xing-Ping & Cheng, Xiao-Mei, 2009. "Energy consumption, carbon emissions, and economic growth in China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(10), pages 2706-2712, August.
    5. Anton Nahman & Geoff Antrobus, 2005. "Trade And The Environmental Kuznets Curve: Is Southern Africa A Pollution Haven?," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 73(4), pages 803-814, December.
    6. Suri, Vivek & Chapman, Duane, 1998. "Economic growth, trade and energy: implications for the environmental Kuznets curve," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 195-208, May.
    7. 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.
    8. Johansen, Soren & Juselius, Katarina, 1990. "Maximum Likelihood Estimation and Inference on Cointegration--With Applications to the Demand for Money," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 52(2), pages 169-210, May.
    9. Susmita Dasgupta & Benoit Laplante & Hua Wang & David Wheeler, 2002. "Confronting the Environmental Kuznets Curve," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 147-168, Winter.
    10. Baek, Jungho & Cho, Yongsung & Koo, Won W., 2009. "The environmental consequences of globalization: A country-specific time-series analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(8-9), pages 2255-2264, June.
    11. M. Hashem Pesaran & Yongcheol Shin & Richard J. Smith, 2001. "Bounds testing approaches to the analysis of level relationships," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(3), pages 289-326.
    12. Menyah, Kojo & Wolde-Rufael, Yemane, 2010. "Energy consumption, pollutant emissions and economic growth in South Africa," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1374-1382, November.
    13. Odhiambo, Nicholas M., 2009. "Electricity consumption and economic growth in South Africa: A trivariate causality test," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 635-640, September.
    14. Dinda, Soumyananda & Coondoo, Dipankor, 2006. "Income and emission: A panel data-based cointegration analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 167-181, May.
    15. Muhammad, Shahbaz & Tiwari, Aviral & Muhammad, Nasir, 2011. "The effects of financial development, economic growth, coal consumption and trade openness on environment performance in South Africa," MPRA Paper 32723, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 10 Aug 2011.
    16. Judith M. Dean, 2002. "Does trade liberalization harm the environment? A new test," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(4), pages 819-842, November.
    17. Ang, James B., 2007. "CO2 emissions, energy consumption, and output in France," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(10), pages 4772-4778, October.
    18. M. Bahmani-Oskooee & S. Chomsisengphet, 2002. "Stability of M2 money demand function in industrial countries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(16), pages 2075-2083.
    19. Ozturk, Ilhan, 2010. "A literature survey on energy-growth nexus," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 340-349, January.
    20. Werner Antweiler & Brian R. Copeland & M. Scott Taylor, 2001. "Is Free Trade Good for the Environment?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 877-908, September.
    21. Blanford, Geoffrey J., 2009. "R&D investment strategy for climate change," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(Supplemen), pages 27-36.
    22. Soytas, Ugur & Sari, Ramazan, 2009. "Energy consumption, economic growth, and carbon emissions: Challenges faced by an EU candidate member," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(6), pages 1667-1675, April.
    23. Paresh Kumar Narayan, 2005. "The saving and investment nexus for China: evidence from cointegration tests," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(17), pages 1979-1990.
    24. Jeffrey A. Frankel & Andrew K. Rose, 2005. "Is Trade Good or Bad for the Environment? Sorting Out the Causality," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(1), pages 85-91, February.
    25. Inglesi-Lotz, R. & Pouris, A., 2012. "Energy efficiency in South Africa: A decomposition exercise," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 113-120.
    26. Baek, Jungho & Kim, Hyun Seok, 2011. "Trade Liberalization, Economic Growth, Energy Consumption and the Environment: Time Series Evidence from G-20 Economies," East Asian Economic Review, Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, vol. 15(1), pages 3-32, March.
    27. Dinda, Soumyananda, 2004. "Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis: A Survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 431-455, August.
    28. Soytas, Ugur & Sari, Ramazan & Ewing, Bradley T., 2007. "Energy consumption, income, and carbon emissions in the United States," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(3-4), pages 482-489, May.
    29. -, 2009. "The economics of climate change," Sede Subregional de la CEPAL para el Caribe (Estudios e Investigaciones) 38679, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    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. Onafowora, Olugbenga A. & Owoye, Oluwole, 2014. "Bounds testing approach to analysis of the environment Kuznets curve hypothesis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 47-62.
    2. Muhammad, Shahbaz & Lean, Hooi Hooi & Muhammad, Shahbaz Shabbir, 2011. "Environmental Kuznets Curve and the role of energy consumption in Pakistan," MPRA Paper 34929, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 22 Nov 2011.
    3. Cerdeira Bento, João Paulo, 2014. "The determinants of CO2 emissions: empirical evidence from Italy," MPRA Paper 59166, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Hye, Qazi Muhammad Adnan & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Leitão, Nuno Carlos, 2013. "Economic growth, energy consumption, financial development, international trade and CO2 emissions in Indonesia," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 109-121.
    5. Faridul, Islam & Muhammad, Shahbaz, 2012. "Is There an Environmental Kuznets Curve for Bangladesh?," MPRA Paper 38490, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 30 Apr 2012.
    6. Duc Khuong Nguyen & Benoît Sévi & Bo Sjö & Gazi Salah Uddin, 2017. "The role of trade openness and investment in examining the energy-growth-pollution nexus: empirical evidence for China and India," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(40), pages 4083-4098, August.
    7. Halicioglu, Ferda, 2009. "An econometric study of CO2 emissions, energy consumption, income and foreign trade in Turkey," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 1156-1164, March.
    8. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Jalil, Abdul & Dube, Smile, 2010. "Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC): Times series evidence from Portugal," MPRA Paper 27443, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Kanjilal, Kakali & Ghosh, Sajal, 2013. "Environmental Kuznet’s curve for India: Evidence from tests for cointegration with unknown structuralbreaks," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 509-515.
    10. Ozturk, Ilhan & Acaravci, Ali, 2010. "CO2 emissions, energy consumption and economic growth in Turkey," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 14(9), pages 3220-3225, December.
    11. Sofien, Tiba & Omri, Anis, 2016. "Literature survey on the relationships between energy variables, environment and economic growth," MPRA Paper 82555, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 14 Sep 2016.
    12. Zhihui Lv & Amanda M. Y. Chu & Michael McAleer & Wing-Keung Wong, 2019. "Modelling Economic Growth, Carbon Emissions, and Fossil Fuel Consumption in China: Cointegration and Multivariate Causality," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(21), pages 1-35, October.
    13. Jahangir Alam, Mohammad & Ara Begum, Ismat & Buysse, Jeroen & Van Huylenbroeck, Guido, 2012. "Energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic growth nexus in Bangladesh: Cointegration and dynamic causality analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 217-225.
    14. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Lean, Hooi Hooi & Shabbir, Muhammad Shahbaz, 2012. "Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis in Pakistan: Cointegration and Granger causality," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 2947-2953.
    15. Saboori, Behnaz & Sulaiman, Jamalludin, 2013. "Environmental degradation, economic growth and energy consumption: Evidence of the environmental Kuznets curve in Malaysia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 892-905.
    16. Acaravci, Ali & Ozturk, Ilhan, 2010. "On the relationship between energy consumption, CO2 emissions and economic growth in Europe," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 5412-5420.
    17. Ghosh, Sajal, 2010. "Examining carbon emissions economic growth nexus for India: A multivariate cointegration approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 3008-3014, June.
    18. Tiba, Sofien & Omri, Anis, 2017. "Literature survey on the relationships between energy, environment and economic growth," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 1129-1146.
    19. Shahbaz, Muhammad & Kumar Tiwari, Aviral & Nasir, Muhammad, 2013. "The effects of financial development, economic growth, coal consumption and trade openness on CO2 emissions in South Africa," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1452-1459.
    20. Salahuddin, Mohammad & Gow, Jeff, 2014. "Economic growth, energy consumption and CO2 emissions in Gulf Cooperation Council countries," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 44-58.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    CO2 emissions; Income; Foreign trade;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    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:eee:enepol:v:63:y:2013:i:c:p:1042-1050. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    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.