Causality relationship between CO 2 emissions, GDP and energy intensity in Tunisia

This article analyzes the causality between the economic growth, the energy and the environment, measured by CO 2 emissions. Our empirical study is based on a series of annual data from 1980 to 2010 in Tunisia. Our study was conducted using the Granger causality test and variance decomposition. The empirical results confirm the presence of a positive effect between the energy consumption and the economic growth measured by gross domestic product (GDP). Thus, there is a unidirectional relationship between GDP and CO 2 emissions in the short term. This analysis shows, as is common to relatively fast-growing economies in Tunisia, that the biggest contributor to the rise is CO 2 emissions. Hence, in congruence with the result of variance decomposition, the GDP affects CO 2 emissions in the short and medium term at an almost constant level (10 %). The non-renewable energy intensity in Tunisian economy is responsible for a modest reduction in CO 2 emissions, which suggests the implementation of conservation policies aimed at energy efficiency and the orientation toward renewable energy. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014