THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG ECONOMIC GROWTH, RENEWABLE ENERGY CONSUMPTION, CO2 EMISSIONS AND AGRICULTURE PRODUCTION: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FOR CHINA AND INDIA

The present study empirically investigated the nexus among renewable energy consumption, economic growth, agriculture production and carbon dioxide emissions for two Asian countries, China and India. By using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL), we analyzed the long-run and short-run estimates. The paper gathered the data of economic growth, agriculture production and carbon emissions from world development indicators (2017), while the data for renewable energy were collected from the Energy Information Administration database (EIA, 2016). The results showed a unidirectional relationship from agricultural production to economic growth. Further, the long-run result confirmed a bidirectional relationship between agricultural production and CO2 emissions. The causality from agricultural production to CO2 emissions was positive, indicating that agriculture is guilty of increasing CO2 levels. In the long run, renewable energy consumption demonstrated a negative impact on CO2 emissions for both countries. Moreover, renewable energy consumption demonstrated a significant positive relationship with agricultural production. In summary, the study provides multiple policy implications: (i) renewable energy sources should be promoted in the overall energy mix to combat global warming, (ii) advanced farming and irrigation methods must be used to increase production and economic growth, and (iii) to reduce carbon emissions and for a green economy, the adoption of advanced agriculture technologies and increased investments in renewable sources for energy needs in China and India are more than urgently needed.