Dou Yue, Shahbaz Muhammad, Dong Kangyin, Dong Xiucheng
School of International Trade and Economics, Business and Economics, University of International, Beijing, 100029 China.
UIBE Belt and Road Energy Trade and Development Center, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, 100029 China.
Nat Hazards (Dordr). 2022;113(3):1875-1901. doi: 10.1007/s11069-022-05374-z. Epub 2022 May 2.
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has once again made the impacts of natural disasters a hot topic in academia. The environmental impacts of natural disasters, however, remain unsettled in the existing literature. This study aims to investigate the impact of natural disasters on CO emissions. For this purpose, we employ a panel dataset covering 138 countries over the period 1990-2018 and two dynamic panel estimation methods. Then, considering the differences in CO emissions across various countries, we run a panel quantile regression to examine the asymmetry in the nexus between natural disasters and CO emissions. We also discuss the mediating effects of energy consumption between natural disasters and CO emissions. After conducting a series of robustness checks, we confirm that our results are stable and convincing. The empirical results indicate that natural disasters significantly reduce CO emissions. Nevertheless, the impact of natural disasters on CO emissions is asymmetric across different quantiles of CO emissions. Furthermore, the technology level serves as an important moderating factor between natural disasters and CO emissions. The mediating effect results reveal that natural disasters not only directly reduce CO emissions but also indirectly promote carbon reduction by restraining energy consumption. Finally, several policy implications are provided to reduce CO emissions and the damage caused by natural disasters.
新冠疫情的爆发再次使自然灾害的影响成为学术界的热门话题。然而，自然灾害对环境的影响在现有文献中仍未得到解决。本研究旨在调查自然灾害对一氧化碳排放的影响。为此，我们使用了一个涵盖1990年至2018年期间138个国家的面板数据集和两种动态面板估计方法。然后，考虑到各国一氧化碳排放的差异，我们进行了面板分位数回归，以检验自然灾害与一氧化碳排放之间关系的不对称性。我们还讨论了能源消耗在自然灾害与一氧化碳排放之间的中介作用。在进行了一系列稳健性检验后，我们证实我们的结果是稳定且有说服力的。实证结果表明，自然灾害显著降低了一氧化碳排放。然而，自然灾害对一氧化碳排放的影响在一氧化碳排放的不同分位数上是不对称的。此外，技术水平是自然灾害与一氧化碳排放之间的一个重要调节因素。中介效应结果表明，自然灾害不仅直接降低了一氧化碳排放，还通过抑制能源消耗间接促进了碳减排。最后，我们提出了一些政策建议，以减少一氧化碳排放和自然灾害造成的损害。
