• Energy Research

Natural gas has returned to prominence in the agenda of European countries since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022. However, natural gas is a fossil source with severe environmental implications. This paper aims to verify the impact of natural gas on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for a European panel from 1993 to 2018 for sixteen countries. An Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model in the form of an unrestricted error correction model was used to identify the short-run impacts, the long-run elasticities, and the speed of adjustment of the model. The results indicate that in the short-run, natural gas has a negligible impact on CO2 emissions when faced with oil consumption (6.7 times less), whereas the consumption of renewables and hydroelectric energy proved to be able to decrease the CO2 emissions both in the short- and long-run. The elasticity of oil consumption is lower than the unit, indicating that efficiency gains have been achieved during the process of the energy transition to clean energy sources. If economies use non-renewable energy, governments must continue to prefer natural gas to oil. Renewables and hydroelectric consumption must be used to revert the path of CO2 emissions. Given the unstable scenario that has been caused by the War in Eastern Europe, politicians should focus on accelerating the transition from fossil to renewable energies.

Abstract This study was developed according to a two-step approach. In the first step, we provide an investigation of the changes in eco-efficiency under constant and variable return to scale, while on a second step the evaluation of the decoupling elasticity will be given. The impacts of energy, economic and environmental determinants (inputs) on the performance indicators of eco-efficiency were calculated as the inverse of the carbon intensity (ratio of the GDP over the CO2 emissions, both from the World Development Indicators database), the changes in eco-efficiency and the decoupling elasticity between CO2 emissions, and economic growth changes. Data was used for 16 Latin America countries, according to five-year periods, from 1994 to 2013. For all the five-time span considered, it is worth noting, that the degree of technical efficiency for the Latin America countries is lower than the degree of technological efficiency, thus indicating that a portion of the overall inefficiency is due to the fact that these countries are producing below the production frontier rather than to an inefficient use of technology. On average, the results have confirmed that the technological scale change in energy production is the dominant factor influencing the optimal production frontier in the sample of countries under analysis. Complementarily, according to the mixed results from the decoupling analysis, we may conclude that the increase/decrease of the CO2 per capita emissions was due to other economic and environmental factors rather than to a negative/positive effect of the GDP growth rate.

The impact of financial openness on environmental degradation, mainly via carbon dioxide emissions, was investigated for a panel of 21 Latin American and Caribbean countries, throughout 35 years (from 1980 to 2014). An autoregressive distributed lag model was used to decompose the total effects of the variables into their short- and long-run components. The results show that financial openness, economic growth, and primary energy consumption increased environmental degradation, both in the short and long run, while renewable energy consumption decreased it. These findings suggest that policymakers should carry out financial reforms focused on sustainable development, as well as support renewable energy projects. Moreover, the results also lead one to believe that these countries’ economic growth strategies should be integrated with the carbon dioxide emissions regulation.

This research analysed the effect of gender inequality on the economic growth of seventeen countries in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region from 1990 to 2016 using an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model with fixed effects and a quantiles via moments model. Electricity consumption from new renewable energy sources, general government capital stock, private capital stock, trade openness, and urban population were used as control variables, and a battery of preliminary and post-estimation tests were conducted to guarantee the adequacy and suitability of both methodologies. The OLS model with fixed effects supports that gender inequality negatively affects gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. The quantiles via moments (QvM) model confirms the results of the OLS model with fixed effects and reveals that with increasing quantiles (25th, 50th, and 75th), gender inequality leads to decreases in LAC countries’ growth. LAC countries’ policymakers and institutions should improve gender equality to reach a higher development level and a more prosperous society. Developing policies that contribute to increasing women’s participation in the labour market, reducing the gender pay gap, supporting women’s education and training, constructing a more women-friendly and less patriarchal society, and developing measures to limit violence against women and early pregnancy and maternal mortality rates and increase women’s decision-making positions, particularly in public policy decision making, must be implemented.

Abstract In this study, we analysed the role of public and private capital stock in the energy intensity of 21 Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries from 1970 to 2014. The empirical analysis of this study was based on three methodologies, namely: 1) the panel autoregressive distributed lag (P-ARDL) model; 2) the log t regression test method and the club clustering algorithm, and 3) the ordered-logit regression model. The results from our analysis indicated that, although the decreasing trend of LAC energy intensity, the public and private capital stocks did not contribute to this trend, given that they seem to have had an enhancing effect on long-run LAC energy intensity. We also identified the existence of four convergence in terms of energy intensity, with different transition paths and different levels. By the ordered logit estimation, we found that neither the public nor private capital stocks are determinant in club convergence/formation. The overall conclusion is that LAC governments should increase investment in more energy-efficient equipment and infrastructure. This should be done at the same time as they create, or improve, the laws and the regulatory framework regarding energy efficiency, and create incentives to allow private physical capital to follow the same tendency.

This article investigates the impact of fiscal and financial incentives for energy efficiency labels on eco-friendly houses (houses with high energy efficiency certificates, such as A+, A, B, and B−) in 18 municipalities in the Lisbon metropolitan region during the period 2014–2020. The empirical results indicate that the variables of fiscal incentive policies for energy efficiency labels, income per capita, credit agreements for the purchase or construction of a house, and the number of completed dwellings in new constructions for family housing encourage eco-friendly houses. In contrast, the variable number of completed reconstructions per 100 completed new constructions has a negative impact. Although this study is constrained by data limitations resulting from the short period under analysis and the moderate number of municipalities available, it advances the discussions around energy efficiency in residential properties in Portugal. Furthermore, it investigates the effectiveness of tax incentive policies for energy efficiency seals as an instrument for promoting ecological houses in the municipalities of the Lisbon metropolitan area. Thus, the need to study the Portuguese capital stands out as it is the most populous city in the country and concentrates a large part of the economic activity.

The effect of energy policies on the energy performance of residential properties/houses in nineteen Portuguese districts from 2014 to 2021 was investigated. A linear random-effects model regression was used as the method in this empirical investigation. The empirical results indicated that the income per capita has a negative effect on residential properties with high energy efficiency certificates (e.g., A+, A, and B) and a positive impact on residential properties with low energy efficiency certificates (e.g., C, D, E, and F); the codes and standards energy policies for energy efficiency have a positive effect on residential properties with high energy efficiency certificates (e.g., A, B, and B−) and residential properties with low energy efficiency certificates (e.g., C, D, E, and F); the fiscal and financial incentive policies for energy efficiency have a positive effect on residential properties with high energy efficiency certificates (e.g., A+, A, and B) and a negative effect on residential properties with B− energy certificate, and also a negative effect on residential properties with low energy efficiency certificates (e.g., C and D) and a positive effect on residential properties with an F energy certificate; the information and education policies of energy efficiency have a positive effect on residential properties with high energy efficiency certificates (e.g., A+, A, and B) and residential properties with low energy efficiency certificates (e.g., C, D, and E); and, finally, the consumer credit per capita has a positive effect on residential properties with high energy efficiency certificates (e.g., A+, A, and B) and a negative effect on residential properties with low energy efficiency certificates (e.g., C, D, and F), as well as a positive effect on residential properties with an F energy certificate.

Abstract The impact of the stock of public capital on electricity consumption per capita is analysed for eighteen Latin American and Caribbean countries over the period ranging from 1971 to 2014. We rely on the ARDL approach to capture the complexity of short- and long-run relationships between the variables. The results support that the stock of public capital influences electricity consumption only on the short run, revealing that its impact is exerted mainly by an income effect that stimulates electricity consumption momently. The stock of public capital has no long-run impact on per capita electricity consumption, rising doubts on the quality of that public stock of capital to promote development. The modelling of the drivers of electricity consumption also revealed valuable insights into how the Latin American and Caribbean region has evolved. The availability of electricity generation only stimulates moderately per capita electricity consumption, supporting that the integration of Latin American and Caribbean grids that was able to disrupt the link between local generation and consumption. This conclusion is enforced by the no statistical significance of short-run impacts of the availability of electricity generation on per capita electricity consumption.