ارتباط میان مصرف برق، رشد اقتصادی و انتشار CO2 در کشورهای BRICS

This study reexamines the causal link between electricity consumption, economic growth and CO2 emissions in the BRICS countries (i.e., Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) for the period 1990–2010, using panel causality analysis, accounting for dependency and heterogeneity across countries. Regarding the electricity–GDP nexus, the empirical results support evidence on the feedback hypothesis for Russia and the conservation hypothesis for South Africa. However, a neutrality hypothesis holds for Brazil, India and China, indicating neither electricity consumption nor economic growth is sensitive to each other in these three countries. Regarding the GDP–CO2 emissions nexus, a feedback hypothesis for Russia, a one-way Granger causality running from GDP to CO2 emissions in South Africa and reverse relationship from CO2 emissions to GDP in Brazil is found. There is no evidence of Granger causality between GDP and CO2 emissions in India and China. Furthermore, electricity consumption is found to Granger cause CO2 emissions in India, while there is no Granger causality between electricity consumption and CO2 emissions in Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa. Therefore, the differing results for the BRICS countries imply that policies cannot be uniformly implemented as they will have different effects in each of the BRICS countries under study.

With increasing levels of industrialisation, a rapidly climbing global population, changes in lifestyle and rising levels of electricity consumption, the threat of global warming has grown over the last few decades. With the increased concern over the ability of energy supply to keep up with demand, combined with worries over global warming, the study of the relationship between electricity consumption, economic growth and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has gained increasing amounts of attention (Ang, 2007, Soytas et al., 2007, Apergis et al., 2010, Lean and Smyth, 2010, Menyah and Wolde-Rufael, 2010, Pao and Tsai, 2010, Al-mulali, 2011, Li et al., 2011, Pao et al., 2011, Pao and Tsai, 2011, Akpan and Akpan, 2012, El Hedi Arouri et al., 2012, Farhani and Ben Rejeb, 2012, Ozturk and Uddin, 2012 and Chang and Wolde-Rufael,). During the Fifth BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Summit, held in Durban in March 2013, the delegations from the BRICS countries acknowledged that “climate change is one of the greatest challenges and threats towards achieving sustainable development” (Fifth BRICS Summit, 2013). Accordingly, the delegates from the BRICS countries have signed a “multilateral agreement on climate co-operation and the green economy”, which will ensure the exchange of technical and financial support to combat the negative impact of climate change on developing countries (South African Government News Agency, 2013). Due to recent economic growth and the fact that the BRICS countries still use large quantities of fossil fuels for electricity generation, emissions are expected to increase contributing further to global warming. The direction of causality between economic growth, electricity consumption and CO2 emissions is important for the implementation of related policies. If, for example, electricity consumption causes economic growth, the country would have to implement expansive energy policies. If electricity also causes CO2 emissions, then the country would rather have to invest in increasing electricity efficiency in order to decrease emissions without negatively impacting economic growth. If, on the other hand, economic growth causes electricity consumption, then conservative energy policies can be implemented without any adverse effect on economic growth. If there is no causality between these variables, then the country will have to implement separate policies to affect the levels of the individual variables as a change in the levels of one of the variables will have no impact on the other variable. Finally, if there is bidirectional causality between any of these variables, then they are mutually affected and policies need to take into consideration that any change in one will impact the other. This paper re-investigates the relationship between electricity consumption, economic growth, and CO2 emissions in the BRICS countries over the period of 1990–2010 by focusing on country-specific analysis. In detecting causal linkages the panel causality approach is applied. This approach is able to examine cross-state interrelations and country-specific heterogeneity, for example differences in energy resource endowments, energy policies, population size etc. The inclusion of CO2 emissions as a third variable will help to prevent possible omitted variable bias that may occur in the bivariate case. It also makes sense to include this variable as all of the BRICS countries have an abundance of energy resources, mainly fossil fuels, which when used for electricity generation result in CO2 emissions. In addition as mentioned earlier the BRICS countries have mutual agreements with regards to combating climate change and mitigate the effects of GHG emissions. Since the recent inclusion of South Africa into BRICS no study, to our knowledge, has been done using electricity consumption, economic growth and CO2 emissions. The plan of this paper is organised as follows. Section 2 follows as a literature review relating to energy consumption, economic growth and pollutant emissions. Section 3 presents the data used in this study and Section 4 briefly describes the bootstrap panel Granger causality test proposed by Kónya (2006). Section 5 presents the empirical results. Finally, Section 6 provides a discussion of the results of this paper's empirical findings and concludes the paper.

This study reexamines causal link between electricity consumption, economic growth and CO2 emissions in BRICS countries for the period 1990–2010, using panel causality analysis, which accounts for dependency and heterogeneity across countries. The results of the panel bootstrap method suggest that the existence and direction of Granger causality differ among the different BRICS countries. Each of these results has different and important policy implications and recommendations. Table 11 summarises the findings of the exercise.These results are partially consistent with Li et al. (2011), Pao et al. (2011), Ozturk and Uddin (2012) and Chang and Wolde-Rufael (2013). The results of this paper are, however, contrary to those obtained by Pao and Tsai (2011) who find bidirectional causality between energy consumption, economic growth and CO2 emissions; and Apergis and Payne (2010) who found unidirectional causality to run from energy consumption to economic growth in Brazil. The results also differ to those obtained by Odhiambo (2009) who finds bidirectional causality between electricity consumption and economic growth; and Menyah and Wolde-Rufael (2010) who found unidirectional causality running from energy consumption to economic growth, pollutant emissions to economic growth and from energy consumption to CO2 emissions in South Africa. The differences between the results for these papers can be attributed to differing time periods, methodology and additional variables used. Especially, causality analysis is sensitive on the choice of methodology and the inclusion of extra variables. In this paper, we used CO2 as a third variable to avoid certain biases in the mechanism of the causality between electricity consumption and economic growth. In addition, in this paper, the cross-sectional dependence is taken into account which is considered of high importance for groups of countries with relations in terms of their economic policies and trends of key variables. In Brazil, no evidence of causality running in any direction between electricity consumption and economic growth is found, thus supporting the neutrality hypothesis. Similarly, no causality was found to exist between electricity consumption and CO2 emissions. This result makes sense as electricity only accounts for a marginal amount of Brazil's total GHG emissions, the majority coming from land usage. This relatively small contribution made by the electricity sector may also be as a result of increasing levels of infrastructure in and usage of renewable energy sources, particularly hydroelectricity in Brazil. Brazil is home to the Itaipu hydro power facility along the Panama River and the Belo Monte facility (under construction) in the Amazon Basin, which are the second and third (upon completion) largest hydro power plants in the world, respectively (EIA, 2012). With respect to the CO2 emissions—economic growth nexus, causality was found to run from CO2 emissions to economic growth. This result may be due the rapid and large-scale deforestation of the Amazon rain forest. This deforestation is being done in order to increase the area available for agriculture and human settlement. The increased agriculture and the resulting employment have helped to increase economic growth but at the expense of raising the levels of CO2, not just in Brazil but globally. The vast majority (83%) of Brazil's GHG emissions come from agriculture, land-use change and deforestation (Hallding et al., 2011). However, raising the levels of CO2 emissions may indirectly cause economic growth to deteriorate in the long-run. Brazilian policy makers should promote mitigation strategies with aim to reduce CO2 emissions impacting thus the economic growth of the country. An increasing level of CO2 emissions will cause a reduction in environmental quality, thus negatively affecting the workforce's health and therefore causing a reduction in productivity levels in the long-run With respect to Russia, bidirectional causality was found to exist between electricity consumption and economic growth, thus supporting the feedback hypothesis. This result could be because of the fact that Russia's GDP is still fairly dependent on fossil fuels and electricity generation, mainly for exports. An increase in electricity consumption will lead to increased electricity production, which implies an expansion in employment and infrastructure in the electricity sector. This will result in raised levels of disposable income which will, in turn, raise the demand for electricity as more electronic gadgets are bought for entertainment and comfort reasons. There is no causal relationship between electricity consumption and CO2 emissions. This result could have something to do with the fact that Russia is endowed with vast reserves natural gas which the country uses for energy generation and for exporting purposes (EIA, 2012). While natural gas is a fossil fuel and therefore non-renewable, it releases much lower levels of CO2 than coal and oil do in the electricity production process (EPA, 2013), thus electricity consumption does not result in increased CO2 emissions. Russia is the only one of the BRICS countries to have shown a marked decrease in CO2 emissions levels over the period of this study. With regards to the GDP–CO2 emissions nexus, there is a feedback causal relationship between CO2 emissions and economic growth for Russia. Therefore, energy conservation policies may have an adverse effect on economic growth. This result makes sense as the Russian government is planning to increase the number of coal-fired power plants (EIA, 2012). This will result in an increase in employment, thus increasing economic growth. However, due to the increased levels of coal-fired power plants, levels of CO2 emissions will increase. CO2 emissions levels can be decreased with an improvement in the techniques of production, these improvements will help to increase productivity, while decreasing pollution levels. Raising the levels of infrastructure investment to improve energy efficiency and reduce unnecessary waste of energy will also help to decrease emissions without negatively impacting economic growth. In terms of India, no evidence of causality running in any direction between electricity consumption and economic growth was found to exist. This may be as a result of the lack of predictability of the publicly supplied electricity which has caused investors not to depend on it for their production plans. This lack of predictability can be attributed to the rapid increases in total demand for electricity that is far outpacing growth in generation capacity, causing frequent blackouts throughout India's main cities. Coal shortages are further straining power generation capabilities (EIA, 2011). Therefore, India needs to improve energy efficiency and needs to invest in the research and development of renewable energy in order to help lift the strain on the economy caused by electricity shortages. With regards to the relationship between CO2 emissions and electricity consumption, in India there is evidence of unidirectional causality running from electricity consumption to CO2 emissions. This implies that an increase in electricity consumption results in an increase in CO2 emissions. Since the majority of India's commercial energy comes from coal, approximately 42% of India's total energy use in 2009 was accounted for by coal (EIA, 2012), and coal produces vast quantities of CO2 emissions, this result makes sense. Since there is no causal relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth, India may consider decreasing electricity consumption, especially the consumption of fossil fuels, as a viable option for reducing CO2 emissions without retarding the country's economic growth in the long-run. Alternatively, policies that focus on improving energy efficiency and increasing renewable energy use would also help combat the high levels of CO2 emissions. In India, no evidence of causality running in any direction between economic growth and CO2 emissions is found. Hence, India does not seem to need to reduce economic growth levels in order to decrease CO2 emissions. This may reflect the fact that while there are steadily increasing levels of CO2 emissions with economic growth in India, the levels of CO2 emissions are still relatively low in per capita terms. With respect to China, no evidence of causality running in any direction between electricity consumption and economic growth was supported. Thus, electricity consumption related policies (both conservative and expansive) have no effect on the level of economic growth in the long-run. Similarly, no causality was found to exist between electricity consumption and CO2 emissions in China. This result may be due to the great strides China is making in terms of installation and increased usage of renewable, cleaner energy sources, particularly hydro (China is home to the Three Gorges Dam hydro power plant, the largest hydro power facility in the world (EIA, 2012)), wind (China accounts for more than half of the world market in new wind turbines (Hallding et al., 2011)) and nuclear (China accounts for over half the world's nuclear capacity being built (EIA, 2012)). The lack of a causal relationship between economic growth and CO2 emissions can be explained by the fact that China's total energy intensity has decreased between 1990 and 2010 (ABB, 2012). Thus, China is on the right track for reaching the 16% reduction in energy intensity target set out in the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2011–2015) (Hallding et al. (2011). The country's CO2 intensity has also decreased between 2000 and 2010 (ABB, 2012). Therefore, the combination of China's decreasing energy intensity and CO2 intensity has resulted in China being able to achieve relatively high economic growth rates with lowering amounts of energy input required and minimum CO2 emissions. The result of non-causality can also be explained by China's increasing dependency on non-fossil fuels as the source of electricity, again resulting in growth without raised levels of CO2 emissions. Hence, according to these results where cross-section dependence is taken into account, the environmental performance and electricity trends of the country do not affect or get affected by the increasing rates of growth. The policy makers, thus, need to focus on them separately aiming to improve the environmental conditions of the country and maintain the high rates of growth. In the case of South Africa, the results show a unidirectional causality running from economic growth to electricity consumption, thus favouring the conservation hypothesis. This indicates that energy conservation policies have little or no adverse effect on economic growth. Economic growth leads to growth in the commercial and industrial sectors where electricity is a basic input, it also results in higher disposable income which, in turn, raises the demand for household electronic gadgets. This results in higher electricity consumption levels in the country. The unidirectional causality may also imply that electricity consumption is not sufficient to cause economic growth; this could be due to insufficient infrastructure or power facilities to meet the demand caused by economic growth. This has shown to be the case in South Africa as in 2007/8 the country experienced a power crisis resulting in load shedding and several blackouts (EIA, 2013). There is no causal relationship between electricity consumption and CO2 emissions. This result although puzzling at first place has an explanation: the electricity consumption in the country has minimum effect to the total emissions relatively to the immense emissions emitted by the generation of energy, which in its high majority depends on coal-burning (EIA, 2013). With regards to the economic growth-CO2 emissions nexus, there was evidence of a unidirectional causal relationship running from economic growth to CO2 emissions. Thus, expansion of the economy causes CO2 emissions levels to increase. This can be explained by the fact that South Africa's economy relies heavily on its energy sector, which accounted for 15% of GDP in 2008 (Menyah and Wolde-Rufael, 2010). However, the increase in CO2 emissions as a result of economic growth can have negative effects on human health, therefore causing productivity to decrease over a period of time. This implies that policies aimed at promoting energy efficiency should be implemented in order to decrease CO2 emissions without adversely affecting economic growth. The main recommendation for the BRICS countries in general is to increase investment in electricity infrastructure. This will expand electricity production capabilities in order to keep up with supply, while at the same time improving electricity efficiency. This will result in higher levels of electricity production and lower levels of CO2 emissions. The results for the BRICS countries differ to each other and thus an overall “umbrella” policy recommendation would not be appropriate but individually-designed strategies will be mostly welcome appreciating the overall targets of increasing and sustainable economic growth and development, energy security and climate change prevention.