Structural Transformations and Conventional Energy-Based Power Utilization on Carbon Emissions: Empirical Evidence From Pakistan

Abstract

Economic structural changes are a major factor that has a big impact on most of a country or region's economic systems and operations, as well as the environment. This study looks at how conventional energy-based power use affects carbon emissions in Pakistan through a structural change analysis of the country from 1971 to 2018. It uses the autoregressive distributed lags (ARDL) method and covers the period from 1971 to 2018. The long-term findings from the ARDL suggest that economic expansion, growth and development, and agro production lead to declining carbon emissions and in turn, will improve the state of the environment. Precisely, an increase in 1% of economic expansion and agricultural production will reduce carbon emissions by 1.26% and 0.53%, respectively. However, the current use of conventional energy to make electricity is causing carbon dioxide to be released into the air. People who live in cities use more conventional energy, which means that the amount of carbon dioxide they produce will go up by 1.53% for every 1% change in conventional energy use. This means that there are strong links between urbanzation and carbon emissions. Government and industry policymakers should encourage people to use renewable and conventional energy sources, encourage them to invest more in green-related businesses, and provide more social amenities and better infrastructure in Pakistan's rural areas, to name a few things. Doing so will help to reduce the continuing and uncontrolled influx of people to the country’s cities, which simply further endangers the natural environment.