The role of renewable energy and total factor productivity in reducing carbon emissions: A case of top-ranked nations in the renewable energy country attractiveness index.

On the one hand, economies, particularly developing ones, need to grow. On the other hand, climate change is the most pressing issue globally, and nations should take the necessary measures. Such a complex task requires new theoretical and empirical models to capture this complexity and provide new insights. Our study uses a newly developed theoretical framework that involves renewable energy consumption (REC) and total factor productivity (TFP) alongside traditional factors of CO2 emissions. It provides policymakers with border information compared to traditional models, such as the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), being limited to income and population. Advanced panel time series methods are also employed, addressing panel data issues while producing not only pooled but also country-specific results. 20 Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index (RECAI) nations are considered in this study. The results show that REC, TFP, and exports reduce CO2 emissions with elasticities of 0.3, 0.4, and 0.3, respectively. Oppositely, income and imports increase emissions with elasticities of 0.8 and 0.3. Additionally, we show that RECAI countries are commonly affected by global and regional factors. Moreover, we find that shocks can create permanent changes in the levels of the factors but only temporary changes in their growth rates. The main policy implication of the findings is that authorities should implement measures boosting TFP and REC. These factors are driven mainly by technological progress, innovation, and efficiency gains. Thus, they can simultaneously reduce emissions while promoting long-run green economic growth, which addresses the complexity mentioned above to some extent.

The impact of carbon pricing on international competitiveness in the case of Azerbaijan.

This article examines the impact of carbon pricing on international competitiveness for Azerbaijan, utilizing different cointegration methods such as, ARDLBT, CCR, DOLS, and FMOLS to the data spanning from 2000 to 2019. The results of the various cointegration approaches are in line with each other. The estimation results revealed that domestic crude oil price as a proxy of carbon pricing has a positive and significant impact on the real effective exchange rate in Azerbaijan. This implies that a rise in domestic crude oil price raises the real effective exchange rate (appreciation of national currency). An increase in real effective exchange rate indicates a loss in international competitiveness. The study concludes that the Azerbaijani policymakers should implement carbon pricing measures (implicit) to decrease CO2 emissions from energy heavy industries without harming the country's international competitiveness, as well as use more renewable energy in order to prevent higher pollution effects of fossil fuels.

Correction to: Does CO2 emissions-economic growth relationship reveal EKC in developing countries? Evidence from Kazakhstan.

The article Does CO2 emissions-economic growth relationship reveal EKC in developing countries? Evidence from Kazakhstan, written by Fakhri J. Hasanov, Jeyhun I.

Correction to: Re-evaluating the environmental impacts of tourism: does EKC exist?

The article Re-evaluating the environmental impacts of tourism: does EKC exist?, written by Jeyhun I. Mikayilov, Shahriyar Mukhtarov, Jeyhun Mammadov and Mayis Azizov.

Does CO2 emissions-economic growth relationship reveal EKC in developing countries? Evidence from Kazakhstan.

This paper investigates the CO2 emissions-economic growth relationship in Kazakhstan for the period 1992-2013. Johansen, ARDLBT, DOLS, FMOLS, and CCR cointegration methods are used for robustness purpose. We start with the cubic functional form to rule out any misleading results that can be caused by misspecification. Although the estimation results suggest "U"-shaped relationship, the turning point of income is out of the period. It means that the impact of economic growth on CO2 is monotonically increasing in the long run indicating the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis does not hold for Kazakhstan. Moreover, we calculate that the income elasticity of CO2 is about unity. The paper concludes that the Kazakhstani policymakers should focus on less energy-intensive sectors as well as using more renewable energy in order to avoid higher pollution effects of economic growth. They may also set new policy regulations for CO2 reduction.

Re-evaluating the environmental impacts of tourism: does EKC exist?

The study investigates the long-run impact of tourism development on ecological footprint by employing the time-varying coefficient cointegration approach (TVC), in addition to the conventional cointegration techniques in the case of Azerbaijan for the period of 1996-2014. Based on the TVC estimation results, the coefficient of tourism development, which is the income elasticity of environmental degradation, was found to be time invariant. The paper uses energy consumption, trade, urbanization, and institutional quality indicators as control explanatory variables. The estimation results revealed that trade and energy consumption have statistically significant and positive impact on ecological footprint, while the coefficients of the other explanatory variables were found to be insignificant. Both the conventional estimation methods and the TVC concluded that, for the relationship between ecological footprint and tourism development, the EKC hypothesis is not present in Azerbaijan. Policy implications for the resource-rich economies have been discussed.