The role of renewable and non-renewable energy consumption in CO ₂ emissions: a disaggregate analysis of Pakistan

The energy sector has become the largest contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Among these GHG emissions, most threatening is CO ₂ emission which comes from the consumption of fossil fuels. This empirical work analyzes the roles of renewable energy consumption and non-renewable energy consumption in CO ₂ emissions in Pakistan. The empirical evidence is based on an auto-regressive distributive lag (ARDL) model of data from 1970 to 2016. The disaggregate analysis reveals that renewable energy consumption has an insignificant impact on CO ₂ emission in Pakistan and that, in the non-renewable energy model, natural gas and coal are the main contributors to the level of pollution in Pakistan. Economic growth positively contributes to CO ₂ emission in the renewable energy model but not in the non-renewable energy model. Policies that emphasize the contribution of renewable energy to economic growth and that add more clean energy into the energy mix are suggested.