Sectoral output, energy use, and CO2 emission in middle-income countries

• Published in: Environmental science and pollution research international Vol. 24; no. 10; pp. 9754 - 9764
• Main Authors: Sohag, Kazi, Al Mamun, Md, Uddin, Gazi Salah, Ahmed, Ali M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01-04-2017; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Agriculture; Aquatic Pollution; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Carbon dioxide; Carbon dioxide emissions; Climate change; Developing countries; Earth and Environmental Science; Economic growth; Ecotoxicology; Emissions; Energy consumption; Environment; Environmental Chemistry; Environmental Health; Environmental impact; Environmental quality; Environmental science; GDP; Gross Domestic Product; Income; Industrial development; Industrial production; LDCs; Population growth; Research Article; Studies; Technology adoption; Waste Water Technology; Water Management; Water Pollution Control; Trade; emission; Q13; Energy use; Q56; Middle-income countries; Output; CO; Q20; CO2 emission
• ISSN: 0944-1344; 1614-7499; 1614-7499
• DOI: 10.1007/s11356-017-8599-z

Middle-income countries are currently undergoing massive structural changes towards more industrialized economies. In this paper, we carefully examine the impact of these transformations on the environmental quality of middle-income countries. Specifically, we examine the role of sector value addition to GDP on CO
2
emission nexus for middle-income economies controlling for the effects of population growth, energy use, and trade openness. Using recently developed panel methods that consider cross-sectional dependence and allow for heterogeneous slope coefficients, we show that energy use and growth of industrial and service sectors positively explain CO
2
emissions in middle-income economies. We also find that population growth is insignificantly associated with CO
2
emission. Hence, our paper provides a solid ground for developing a sustainable and pro-growth policy for middle-income countries.