Studying the relationship between economic growth, CO2 emissions, and the environmental Kuznets curve in Venezuela (1980-2025)

Abstract

This work tries to determine whether it is possible to stabilize CO2 emissions under a rapid increase of Gross Domestic Product in a medium term. The paper is an effort to study in detail how changes in the driving forces of the economy affect CO2 emissions. We study the case of Venezuela for the period 1980–2025, using the methodology proposed by Robalino-López et al. (2014, 2013) [1] and [2], which is based on an extension of the Kaya identity and on a GDP formation approach that includes the effect of renewable energies. We test the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) [3] hypothesis in a coming future under different economic scenarios considering, therefore, not only past data but also projections for the coming years. We use cointegration techniques [4] and the Jaunky (2011) [5] specification to test the fulfillment of the EKC hypothesis in Venezuela. Our predictions show that Venezuela does not fulfill the EKC hypothesis, but however, the country could be on the way to achieve environmental stabilization in the medium term. This stabilization could be accomplished combining economic growth with increasing use of renewable energy, appropriated changes in the energy matrix, and in the productive sectoral structure.