Abstract
The presented study analyzes the asymmetry effect of research and development (R&D) expenditures, population growth, energy consumption, and economic growth on carbon emissions in the sample of Turkey for the period 1990-2020. Nonlinear ARDL is used to control the asymmetry of the variables. Linear ARDL is used to control the long-term and short-term relationships between the variables. The findings show that there is a symmetrical or linear relationship between the variables of R&D expenditures, population growth, energy consumption, economic growth, and carbon emissions. The findings display that economic growth and R&D are effective in reducing carbon emissions, while energy consumption seems to increase carbon emissions. Interestingly, the population was found to be effective in reducing carbon emissions in the study. In order for Turkey to reach its 2050 target, it is necessary to give priority to environmental regulations and policies.
TopIntroduction
With the industrial revolution and globalization, an increase in the amount of carbon emissions has been seen in many countries. Because, the industrialization that developed as a result of the countries' desire to achieve more economic growth has increased carbon emissions by causing the ozone layer to thin and global warming to increase (Martinez, 2005). One of the most striking difficulties of the 21st century is climate change. Climate change directly affects the natural and social environment. Climate change is both global warming affected by human-induced carbon emissions and large-scale changes in weather patterns as a result (Gruber, 2011). In other words, the industrialization that developed with the 21st century brings a welfare society to the ecological environment. As a result of the extraordinary use of natural resources for economic development, climate change, which can be described as an environmental problem, has come to the fore. The destruction caused by climate change and the threats it contains have reached the level that would affect all humanity and have become a global problem. Climate change ranks second among the risks that may affect global development (Hanbay Kahriman, 2020). At the Climate Change Conference held in Paris in 2015, the Paris Agreement was accepted with the participation of 195 countries. This agreement is aimed at solving the problems that arise as a result of climate change with a common policy. Action needs to be taken today to avoid the more negative and costly effects of climate change in the future (United Nations, 2015).
Turkey is one of the six countries that did not sign Paris agreement. However, Turkey, which ranks 15th in the world in carbon emissions that trigger global warming, released 506.1 million tons of carbon in 2019. The carbon emission per capita in Turkey was 6.4 tons in 2019. In 2019, the energy sector had the largest share in total greenhouse gas emissions with 72%. The agriculture sector with 13.4%, manufacturing procedures and merchandise usage with 11.2% and waste with 3.4% follow the energy sector (TUIK, 2021). In this context, the change in carbon emissions between 1990 and 2019 is shown in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1. Total and per capita Carbon Emission, 1990-2019
According to Figure 1, total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as CO2 equivalent for 2019 reduced by 3.1% associated to the previous year and amounted to 506.1 million tons (Mt). While total GHG emissions per capita were 4 tons of CO2 in 1990, this figure was computed as 6.4 tons of CO2 in 2019.
Correspondingly, high financial development and varying lifestyles lead to increased CO2 emissions (Shan et al. 2018). Looking at the economic growth and carbon emission statistics about Turkey, it can be said that there is a positive relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution in Turkey, which is a developing country, and that economic growth injuries the ecosystem (Bayramoglu and Yurtkur, 2016). One of the reasons for the increase in increasing CO2 emissions is rapid urbanization and population growth. Although urbanization has a positive effect on the growth of the economies of countries, it poses serious threats to the environment and is one of the chief problems in sustainable development (Liu et al. 2016; Kaygalak and Isik, 2007). With the increase in urbanization, the lifestyle of a large population has changed, which causes an increase in CO2 emissions as a result of people's increasing energy needs. In other words, economic growth is closely related to increased use of electricity/energy in general. In addition, it is known that it can cause an increase in CO2 emissions (Ozturk and Kusmez, 2019). In addition, R&D activities bring more innovation with technology and help reduce CO2 emissions. Therefore, allocating more budgets to R&D activities provides significantly to the decline of CO2 emissions (Fernadez et al. 2018).
Key Terms in this Chapter
R&D: R&D means research and development. Today, it is one of the activities that almost all countries attach great importance to. It is used in R&D institutions or businesses to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and create more advanced products for production.
Carbon Emissions: Carbon emission simply means the release of carbon into the atmosphere. Because greenhouse gas emissions are usually calculated in carbon dioxide equivalents, they are often referred to as “carbon emissions” in any discussion of global warming or greenhouse gas impacts.
Economic Growth: At its simplest, economic growth is an increase in the production of goods and services in an economy. Economic growth is measured by the increase in the collective market value of additional goods and services produced using estimates such as GDP. Generally, but not necessarily, total gains in production are associated with increasing average marginal productivity.
ARDL Approach: The ARDL approach can test the existence of a cointegration relationship between series with different degrees of stationarity.
Asymmetric Impact: The asymmetric effect is expressed as a large return on you when you spend very little energy on a job, or no return on you after working on a job for days.