Forest conservation and renewable energy consumption: an ARDL approach

Abstract

Deforestation shows the constant environmental degradation that occurs worldwide as a result of the growth of economic activity and the increase in population. This research examines the causal link between renewable energy consumption, GDP, GDP2, non-renewable energy price, population growth and forest area in high, middle- and low-income countries. Based on data obtained from World Development Indicators, the autoregressive distributed lag model, with a time series, is used to examine the long-term cointegration relationship between the variables. The results justify the existence of a joint long-term relationship between the variables analysed for the middle-income countries and low-income countries. When the forest area is not at its equilibrium level, the speed of adjustment is slow (0.44% and 8.7%), which is typical of the nature of this natural resource. An increase in the consumption of renewable energy is associated with an increase between 0.04 and 0.02 square kilometres of forest cover, respectively. The research does not show evidence about the equilibrium relationship in the short term. Growth in renewable energy consumption is one of the main drivers for preserving the forest area. Therefore, those responsible for making economic policies must aim their measures towards the use of clean energy.