Tran Nhan Dang, Sahu Naresh Chandra, Kumar Pushp
School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Management, Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar, Khordha, Odisha, 752050, India.
The University of Danang, University of Economics, Da Nang, Vietnam.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2023 Apr;30(20):58200-58212. doi: 10.1007/s11356-023-26682-2. Epub 2023 Mar 28.
Concerns over adverse environmental effects have been raised due to Vietnam's reliance on fossil fuels like coal. At the same time, efforts are being made to boost the usage of renewable energy while simultaneously lowering greenhouse gas emissions. This study examines whether there is an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) relationship between gross domestic product (GDP) and coal consumption in Vietnam by controlling for renewable energy consumption and oil prices from 1984 to 2021. We adopt the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) framework to explore a long-run level relationship between the study variables. We find that the GDP elasticity of coal demand has been greater than one since the 1990s and about 3.5 in recent years, indicating that the coal intensity of GDP has increased with economic growth. Thus, the GDP-coal consumption relationship resembles an upward-sloping curve instead of an inverted U-shaped EKC. This relationship is robust when we use other estimation methods and account for two additional independent variables. While a 1% rise in renewable energy consumption results in a 0.4% reduction in coal consumption, the impact of oil prices on coal consumption is negative but insignificant. The findings allow us to provide policy implications for the sustainable development of Vietnam: (1) more stringent policies, for example, enacting a carbon pricing scheme, are needed to reduce coal consumption; (2) policies should be implemented to make renewable energy sources more affordable; and (3) as facing high oil prices, the country should diversify its energy mix by expanding the usage of renewable energy.
由于越南对煤炭等化石燃料的依赖，人们对其不利的环境影响表示担忧。与此同时，越南正在努力提高可再生能源的使用量，同时降低温室气体排放量。本研究通过控制1984年至2021年的可再生能源消费和油价，考察越南国内生产总值（GDP）与煤炭消费之间是否存在环境库兹涅茨曲线（EKC）关系。我们采用自回归分布滞后（ARDL）框架来探索研究变量之间的长期水平关系。我们发现，自20世纪90年代以来，煤炭需求的GDP弹性大于1，近年来约为3.5，这表明GDP的煤炭强度随着经济增长而增加。因此，GDP与煤炭消费的关系类似于一条向上倾斜的曲线，而不是倒U形的EKC。当我们使用其他估计方法并考虑另外两个自变量时，这种关系是稳健的。虽然可再生能源消费每增加1%，煤炭消费就会减少0.4%，但油价对煤炭消费的影响是负面的，但不显著。这些发现使我们能够为越南的可持续发展提供政策建议：（1）需要更严格的政策，例如制定碳定价计划，以减少煤炭消费；（2）应实施政策，使可再生能源更具可承受性；（3）面对高油价，该国应通过扩大可再生能源的使用来实现能源结构多样化。
