Is trade openness good for environment in South Korea? The role of non-fossil electricity consumption

Zhang, Shun

doi:10.1007/s11356-018-1264-3

Research Article
Published: 21 January 2018

Is trade openness good for environment in South Korea? The role of non-fossil electricity consumption

Shun Zhang ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3348-0808¹

Environmental Science and Pollution Research volume 25, pages 9510–9522 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

The paper investigates the linkage of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, per capita real output, share of non-fossil electricity consumption, and trade openness in South Korea from 1971 to 2013. The empirical results indicate that the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) is supported by autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) test. Both short- and long-run estimates indicate that increasing non-fossil electricity consumption can mitigate environmental degradation, and increasing trade aggravates carbon dioxide emissions. By Granger causality, long-run causalities are found in both equations of CO₂ emissions and trade openness, as well as exports and imports. In the short-run, evidence indicates feedback linkage between output and trade, unidirectional linkages from trade to emissions, from emissions to output, and from output to non-fossil electricity use. Therefore, South Korea should strengthen the sustainable economy, consume clean energy, and develop green trade.

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Notes

International Center for Climate Governance. http://www.iccgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/08_reflection_june_2012.pdf.
http://www.energy.or.kr/web/kem_home_new/energy_issue/mail_vol22/pdf/publish_05_201507.pdf.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
In this paper, we use territory-based emissions to examine the impact of trade on emissions, such as Shahbaz et al. (2017) cited by Liddle (2017).
Per capita is widely used in the model of EKC hypothesis, such as Lorente and Álvarez-Herranz (2016), Apergis (2016), and Dong et al. (2017a, b).
According to the existing literature, total trade can be separated into imports and exports to set up the function (Narayan and Smyth 2009; Ben Jebli and Ben Youssef 2015; Le et al. 2016).
International Monetary Fund. Economic Outlook Database. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2015/02/weodata/index.aspx.

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School of Business, Luoyang Normal University, Luoyang, Henan, People’s Republic of China
Shun Zhang

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Zhang, S. Is trade openness good for environment in South Korea? The role of non-fossil electricity consumption. Environ Sci Pollut Res 25, 9510–9522 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-1264-3

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Received: 30 September 2017
Accepted: 11 January 2018
Published: 21 January 2018
Issue Date: April 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-1264-3

Keywords

Carbon dioxide emissions
Trade openness
Share of non-fossil electricity consumption
Environmental Kuznets curve
South Korea