The “karma” of impact on the Earth: will humans take responsibility? Evidence of energy consumption and CO2 emissions

Abstract

Energy consumption and CO2 emissions are agreed as the main causes of global warming and climate change, which are causing several extreme weather events in recent decades. However, there is little understanding how humans adjust their behaviours in energy consumption and emissions in responding to these natural threats. This study aims to examine the influences of exposure, susceptibility, and vulnerability to five natural hazards on CO2 emissions, energy intensity, renewable energy, and electricity consumption. The feasible generalized least squares model and several panel estimates are applied for a global sample of 161 countries from 2011 to 2018. The empirical results provide interesting findings. First, exposure, susceptibility, and vulnerability appear to reduce electricity usage, renewable energy consumption, energy intensity, and CO2 emissions in the global sample. Second, the negative effects of exposure, susceptibility, and vulnerability are consistent across four income groups (high-income; upper-middle-income; lower-middle-income; and low-income) except for some interesting differences. Exposure appears to increase renewable energy consumption significantly in upper-middle and high-income, while susceptibility has a significant positive influence on renewable energy consumption in low-, upper-middle, and high-income. Third, the negative impact is also documented in seven regions, with the exception of some interesting findings: threats from nature appear to increase CO2 emissions and energy intensity in the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and Europe and Central Asia, while they stimulate the use of renewable energy in Latin America and Caribbean. Interestingly, exposure and susceptibility appear to induce renewable energy transformation in Europe and Central Asia.