Environmental Degradation, Renewable Energy, and Non-Renewable Energy Consumption in Saudi Arabia: An ARDL Bound Testing Approach

Kais Ben-Ahmed (), Sahar J. Melebary and Turki K. Bawazir
Additional contact information
Kais Ben-Ahmed: Department of Finance and Insurance, College of Business, University of Jeddah, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia
Sahar J. Melebary: Department of Biological Sciences, College of Science, University of Jeddah, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia
Turki K. Bawazir: Department of Management Information Systems, College of Business, University of Jeddah, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 11, 1-17

Abstract: Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 is closely tied to CO 2 emissions and energy consumption issues. This initiative aims to modernize the country’s economy, diversify its energy sources, and enhance sustainability. This paper examines the relationships among CO 2 emissions, Renewable Energy Consumption (REC), and Non-Renewable Energy Consumption (NREC) in Saudi Arabia, from 1990 to 2019. To assess the stationarity of the panel time-series data, the Augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) and Phillips–Perron (PP) tests were initially used. Given that the data exhibited a mixed order of integration, the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) framework was employed. Three different lag selection criteria were applied for cointegration, using CO 2 emissions as the dependent variable. Additionally, the direction and significance of causality were analyzed within the ARDL framework. Robust tests were conducted to evaluate the generalizability of the study’s findings. We demonstrated a significant long-term relationship between climate change and both REC and NREC in Saudi Arabia. The findings indicate that in the long run, a 1% increase in REC leads to a 0.21% decrease in CO 2 emissions. Furthermore, a 1% increase in NREC corresponds to a substantial 53.4% reduction in CO 2 emissions. Finally, policy recommendations were proposed in alignment with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030.

Keywords: environmental degradation; REC; NREC; CO 2 emissions; ADF; PP; ARDL model; Saudi Arabia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/11/4970/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/11/4970/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:11:p:4970-:d:1666785

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().