Department of Finance, College of Business Administration, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj, 11942, Saudi Arabia.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2022 Aug;29(38):57980-57996. doi: 10.1007/s11356-022-19851-2. Epub 2022 Mar 31.
Oil and gas are key energy sources in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. The present study examines the asymmetrical environmental effects of these energy sources and also tests the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) from 1975 to 2019. In the long run, the EKC is corroborated in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. But the EKC is not validated in the GCC Panel. Increasing oil consumption raises carbon dioxide (CO) emissions in all investigated GCC countries, and decreasing oil consumption reduces CO emissions in Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The effect of oil consumption is found asymmetrical in Qatar and symmetrical in the rest of GCC countries. Increasing natural gas consumption (NGC) carries a positive effect in all investigated GCC countries, and decreasing NGC reduces emissions in Oman, Qatar, and the UAE. Moreover, NGC's effects are asymmetrically in all GCC countries except Qatar. In the panel estimates, both increasing and decreasing oil and NGC have positive effects on CO emissions. The long-run effect of oil consumption on CO emissions is larger than the effect of NGC in most GCC economies and panel results. In the short run, increasing and decreasing oil consumption and NGC have a positive effect on emissions in all investigated economies except Saudi Arabia. In the long run, coefficients of decreasing oil consumption are found significantly greater than coefficients of increasing NGC in Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the whole GCC. This finding corroborates that increasing CO emissions with increasing NGC is lower than decreasing CO emissions with decreasing oil consumption. Hence, we recommend these countries switch from oil consumption to NGC to reduce overall CO emissions.
石油和天然气是海湾合作委员会（GCC）地区的主要能源。本研究考察了这些能源的非对称环境影响，并检验了 1975 年至 2019 年的环境库兹涅茨曲线（EKC）。从长期来看，EKC 在科威特和沙特阿拉伯得到了证实。但在 GCC 面板中，EKC 并未得到验证。石油消费的增加增加了所有调查的 GCC 国家的二氧化碳（CO）排放，而石油消费的减少减少了科威特、阿曼、沙特阿拉伯和阿拉伯联合酋长国（UAE）的 CO 排放。在卡塔尔，石油消费的影响是不对称的，而在其余的 GCC 国家，石油消费的影响是对称的。增加天然气消费（NGC）对所有调查的 GCC 国家都有积极影响，减少 NGC 减少了阿曼、卡塔尔和阿联酋的排放。此外，除了卡塔尔，NGC 在所有 GCC 国家的影响都是不对称的。在面板估计中，石油和 NGC 的增加和减少都对 CO 排放有积极影响。在大多数 GCC 经济体和面板结果中，石油消费对 CO 排放的长期影响大于 NGC 的影响。在短期内，除了沙特阿拉伯之外，增加和减少石油消费和 NGC 的使用对所有调查的经济体的排放都有积极影响。从长期来看，科威特、阿曼、沙特阿拉伯、阿联酋和整个 GCC 减少石油消费的系数明显大于增加 NGC 的系数。这一发现证实，随着 NGC 的增加而增加的 CO 排放低于随着石油消费的减少而减少的 CO 排放。因此，我们建议这些国家从石油消费转向 NGC，以减少整体 CO 排放。
