Abstract
The transition towards a low-carbon transport sector (TS) plays a fundamental role on the decarbonisation of economies. The effects of both conventional (fossil fuels) and alternative (renewable fuels and electricity) energy consumption in the transport sector, economic growth, and carbon dioxide emissions were analysed by using a panel vector autoregressive of 21 high-income Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries from 1990 to 2014. The results support the feedback hypothesis between both conventional and alternative TS energy sources and economic growth. In other words, electricity use on TS has enlarged the economic growth, while consumption of renewable fuels is actually hampering it. Additionally, TS fossil fuels consumption is contributing to economic growth. With reference to the environmental impacts of TS energy use, this paper highlights the harmful effect of conventional energy sources on the environment. However, there is no evidence wherein TS alternative energy sources are directly linked with a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. Accordingly, the promotion of alternative TS energy sources should deserve further attention. On the one hand, there is evidence that the use of renewable fuels is obstructing economic growth. On the other hand, the use of both TS electricity and renewable fuels is not reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
This variable comprises the direct use of renewable fuels by the transport sector and does not take into account the renewable electricity.
References
Abdul-Wahhab, H. A., Al-Kayiem, H. H., Aziz, A. R. A., & Nasif, M. S. (2017). Survey of invest fuel magnetization in developing internal combustion engine characteristics. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 79, 1392–1399. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2017.05.121.
Abid, M., & Sebri, M. (2012). Energy consumption-economic growth nexus: Does the level of aggregation matter? International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, 2(2), 55–62.
Abrigo, M. R. M., & Love, I. (2015). Estimation of panel vector autoregression in stata: A package of programs, p. 28. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781107415324.004.
Achour, H., & Belloumi, M. (2016). Investigating the causal relationship between transport infrastructure, transport energy consumption and economic growth in Tunisia. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.12.023.
Ajanovic, A., & Haas, R. (2011). On the future relevance of biofuels for transport in EU-15 countries. WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, 143, 97–108. https://doi.org/10.2495/ESUS110091.
Ajanovic, A., & Haas, R. (2016). Dissemination of electric vehicles in urban areas: Major factors for success. Energy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2016.05.040.
Alshehry, A. S., & Belloumi, M. (2017). Study of the environmental Kuznets curve for transport carbon dioxide emissions in Saudi Arabia. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 75, 1339–1347. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.11.122.
Andrews, D. W. K., & Lu, B. (2001). Consistent model and moment selection procedures for GMM estimation with application to dynamic panel data models. Journal of Econometrics, 101(1), 123–164. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-4076(00)00077-4.
Arellano, M., & Bover, O. (1995). Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models. Journal of Econometrics, 68(1), 29–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-4076(94)01642-D.
Azam, M., Othman, J., Begum, R. A., Abdullah, S. M. S., & Nor, N. G. M. (2016). Energy consumption and emission projection for the road transport sector in Malaysia: An application of the LEAP model. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 18(4), 1027–1047. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-015-9684-4.
Bae, C., & Kim, J. (2017). Alternative fuels for internal combustion engines. Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, 36(3), 3389–3413. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proci.2016.09.009.
Ben Abdallah, K., Belloumi, M., & De Wolf, D. (2013). Indicators for sustainable energy development: A multivariate cointegration and causality analysis from Tunisian road transport sector. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 25, 34–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2013.03.066.
Boccard, N. (2009). Capacity factor of wind power realized values vs. estimates. Energy Policy, 37(7), 2679–2688. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2009.02.046.
Burke, P. J., & Csereklyei, Z. (2016). Understanding the energy-GDP elasticity: A sectoral approach. Energy Economics, 58, 199–210. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2016.07.004.
Camarero, M., Forte, A., Garcia-donato, G., Men-, Y., & Ordo, J. (2015). Variable selection in the analysis of energy consumption-growth nexus. Energy Economics. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2015.10.012.
Cansino, J. M., de Pablo-Romero, M., Román, R., & Yñiguez, R. (2012). Promotion of biofuel consumption in the transport sector: An EU-27 perspective. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 16(8), 6013–6021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2012.06.011.
Chandran, V. G. R., & Tang, C. F. (2013). The impacts of transport energy consumption, foreign direct investment and income on CO2 emissions in ASEAN-5 economies. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 24, 445–453. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2013.03.054.
Coffman, M., Bernstein, P., & Wee, S. (2017). Integrating electric vehicles and residential solar PV. Transport Policy, 53, 30–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2016.08.008.
Costantini, V., & Martini, C. (2010). The causality between energy consumption and economic growth: A multi-sectoral analysis using non-stationary cointegrated panel data. Energy Economics, 32(3), 591–603. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2009.09.013.
Eliasson, J., & Proost, S. (2015). Is sustainable transport policy sustainable? Transport Policy, 37, 92–100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2014.09.010.
European Commission. (2016). Transport in Figures 2015. https://doi.org/10.2832/861735.
Flora, R., Marques, A. C., & Fuinhas, J. A. (2014). Wind power idle capacity in a panel of European countries. Energy, 66, 823–830. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2013.12.061.
Ibrahiem, D. M. (2017). Road energy consumption, economic growth, population and urbanization in Egypt: Cointegration and causality analysis. Environment, Development and Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-017-9922-z.
Liddle, B., & Lung, S. (2013). The long-run causal relationship between transport energy consumption and GDP: Evidence from heterogeneous panel methods robust to cross-sectional dependence. Economics Letters (Vol. 121). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2013.10.011.
Love, I., & Zicchino, L. (2006). Financial development and dynamic investment behavior: Evidence from panel VAR. Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, 46(2), 190–210. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.qref.2005.11.007.
Mahmoudzadeh Andwari, A., Pesiridis, A., Rajoo, S., Martinez-Botas, R., & Esfahanian, V. (2017). A review of battery electric vehicle technology and readiness levels. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 78(February), 414–430. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2017.03.138.
Månsson, A. (2016). Energy security in a decarbonised transport sector: A scenario based analysis of Sweden’s transport strategies. Energy Strategy Reviews, 13–14, 236–247. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esr.2016.06.004.
Marques, S., Reis, L., Afonso, J. L., & Silva, C. (2016). Energy rating methodology for light-duty vehicles: Geographical impact. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 18(5), 1501–1519. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-016-9776-9.
Mraihi, R., ben Abdallah, K., & Abid, M. (2013). Road transport-related energy consumption: Analysis of driving factors in Tunisia. Energy Policy, 62, 247–253. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2013.07.007.
Neves, S. A., Marques, A. C., & Fuinhas, J. A. (2017). Is energy consumption in the transport sector hampering both economic growth and the reduction of CO2 emissions? A disaggregated energy consumption analysis. Transport Policy, 59(July), 64–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2017.07.004.
Nocera, S., & Cavallaro, F. (2016). The competitiveness of alternative transport fuels for CO2 emissions. Transport Policy, 50, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2016.05.013.
Omri, A. (2014). An international literature survey on energy-economic growth nexus: Evidence from country-specific studies. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 38, 951–959. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2014.07.084.
Payne, J. E. (2010). A survey of the electricity consumption-growth literature. Applied Energy, 87(3), 723–731. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2009.06.034.
Pesaran, M. H. (2007). A simple panel unit root test in the presence of cross-section dependence. Journal of Applied Econometrics, 22(2), 265–312. https://doi.org/10.1002/jae.951.
Razeghi, G., & Samuelsen, S. (2016). Impacts of plug-in electric vehicles in a balancing area. Applied Energy, 183, 1142–1156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2016.09.063.
Saboori, B., Sapri, M., & bin Baba, M. (2014). Economic growth, energy consumption and CO2 emissions in OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development)’s transport sector: A fully modified bi-directional relationship approach. Energy, 66, 150–161. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2013.12.048.
Sanz, M. T., Cansino, J. M., González-Limón, J. M., Santamaría, M., & Yñiguez, R. (2014). Economic assessment of CO2 emissions savings in Spain associated with the use of biofuels for the transport sector in 2010. Utilities Policy, 29, 25–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jup.2014.04.002.
Shafiei, E., Davidsdottir, B., Leaver, J., Stefansson, H., & Asgeirsson, E. I. (2017). Energy, economic, and mitigation cost implications of transition toward a carbon-neutral transport sector: A simulation-based comparison between hydrogen and electricity. Journal of Cleaner Production, 141, 237–247. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.09.064.
Talbi, B. (2017). CO2 emissions reduction in road transport sector in Tunisia. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 69, 232–238. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.11.208.
Tang, C. F., & Shahbaz, M. (2013). Sectoral analysis of the causal relationship between electricity consumption and real output in Pakistan. Energy Policy, 60, 885–891. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2013.05.077.
Tiba, S., & Omri, A. (2017). Literature survey on the relationships between energy, environment and economic growth. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 69, 1129–1146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.09.113.
World Energy Council. (2011). World Energy Scenarios: Global Transport Scenarios 2050. https://www.worldenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/wec_transport_scenarios_2050.pdf.
Wu, H.-M., & Xu, W. (2014). Cargo transport energy consumption factors analysis: Based on LMDI decomposition technique. IERI Procedia, 9, 168–175. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ieri.2014.09.058.
Xu, B., & Lin, B. (2015a). Factors affecting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in China’s transport sector: a dynamic nonparametric additive regression model. Journal of Cleaner Production, 101, 311–322. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.03.088.
Xu, B., & Lin, B. (2015b). Carbon dioxide emissions reduction in China’s transport sector: A dynamic VAR (vector autoregression) approach. Energy, 83, 486–495. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.02.052.
Zhang, H., & Chen, W. (2015). The role of biofuels in China’s transport sector in carbon mitigation scenarios. Energy Procedia, 75, 2700–2705. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2015.07.682.
Zhang, H., Chen, W., & Huang, W. (2016). TIMES modelling of transport sector in China and USA: Comparisons from a decarbonization perspective. Applied Energy, 162, 1505–1514. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.08.124.
Zhang, M., Li, H., Zhou, M., & Mu, H. (2011). Decomposition analysis of energy consumption in Chinese transportation sector. Applied Energy, 88(6), 2279–2285. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2010.12.077.
Acknowledgements
The financial support of the NECE-UBI, the Research Unit in Business Science and Economics, sponsored by the Portuguese Foundation for the Development of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Project UID/GES/04630/2013, is gratefully acknowledged. We also would like to express our acknowledgments to the anonymous reviewers for the valuable and useful comments and suggestions.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Neves, S.A., Marques, A.C. & Fuinhas, J.A. Could alternative energy sources in the transport sector decarbonise the economy without compromising economic growth?. Environ Dev Sustain 20 (Suppl 1), 23–40 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-018-0153-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-018-0153-8