Do Urbanization and Energy Consumption Change the Role in Environmental Degradation in the European Union Countries?

Bartosz Jóźwik (), Antonina-Victoria Gavryshkiv and Kinga Galewska
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Bartosz Jóźwik: Department of International Economics, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Al. Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland
Antonina-Victoria Gavryshkiv: Department of International Economics, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Al. Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland
Kinga Galewska: Department of International Economics, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Al. Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 17, 1-14

Abstract: Nowadays, increased urbanization is visible in most European Union countries. At the same time, it can be noticed that in the studied period (2000–2018), GDP per capita increased, and CO 2 emissions per capita and energy consumption per capita decreased. These trends should be assessed in an unequivocally positive way. Considering these trends, especially with regard to economic development, our research goal is to answer the following questions: is there a long-run relationship between urbanization, energy consumption, economic growth, and carbon dioxide emissions, and what roles do urbanization and energy consumption play in the concept of the environmental Kuznets curve? This study aims to contribute to this growing area of research by exploring the European Union countries in the period covering the accession of new member states from Central Europe that needs intensifying European environmental policy. In order to test cointegration, we used Pedroni and Westerlund’s panel tests. To estimate the long-run coefficients, we employed the FMOLS, MG, CCEMG, and AMG tests. Our findings confirmed the long-run relationship between variables. We find that urbanization has a high negative impact on carbon dioxide emissions per capita. Interestingly, our studies’ results differ from those in most of the previously published articles about European countries. For this reason, our results provide a new insight for policymakers in European Union institutions.

Keywords: environmental Kuznets curve; carbon dioxide emissions; CO 2; urbanization; energy consumption; European Union (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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