This paper examines the proposition that the climatic shift has been responsible for creating adverse effects on economic growth, and the authors have analysed this situation for India. They consider the number of oceanic storms in the Indian Ocean and the annual mean temperature of India for the 1971-2010 periods. Using vector error correction and causality analysis, they have tried to identify the impact of India's fossil fuel-based energy consumption on climatic shift, and have found significant unidirectional and bidirectional causal associations between parameters of climatic shift and drivers of economic growth. The links identified in this paper largely address the missing feedback link issue in the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis.

Joysankar Bhattacharya

Economics

Avik Sinha

IIM Indore seeks to be a contextually-relevant business school with world-class academic standards that develops socially-conscious managers, leaders and entrepreneurs. IIM Indore is committed to: Excellence in management education, research, and training, Use of contemporary participant-centric pedagogies and teaching methods, A presence in emerging segments of management education.

IIM Indore

Is energy-led economic growth causing climatic shift? A causal analysis for India

International Journal of Green Economics

Within the context of coordination level between state and central government, we develop an econometric model to estimate the association between income and ambient air pollution, considering the societal preferences jointly influenced by the citizens and the government. We obtain empirical evidence supporting our hypothesis that state level coalition government can effectively improve quality of environment by means of reducing ambient air pollution level. This impact can be increased or decreased based on the societal preferences of the citizens, based on the area of inhabitance and irrespective of the choice of pollutants.

Fulltext

Atmospheric Pollution Research

Collaboration between central and state government and environmental quality: Evidences from Indian cities

Interaction between environmental degradation and economic growth is a growing matter of interest among policymakers. Here we have estimated Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) for 139 Indian cities considering SO2 emissions. Study has been done for 2001–2013, and the data have been segregated by residential and industrial areas, and as well as low, medium, and high income areas. By virtue of different forms of EKC being found, policy level decisions have been designed. Moreover, non-rejection of EKC hypothesis reemphasized the impact of growth catalyzing economic policy decisions on environment.

Ecological Indicators

Estimation of environmental Kuznets curve for SO2 emission: A case of Indian cities

Ever-growing problems of environmental degradation can be attributed to the inequality scenarios arising from the prevalent socio-economic imbalances and two of the major inequalities for the case of India in this regard are inequality in energy intensity and economic inequality. In this paper, we have taken the ambient air pollution data for 139 cities in India for the duration of 2001-2013, where sulphur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) have been chosen as the major air pollutants. Based on the empirical evidence, it can be found that interactions between inequality and societal aspects have significant contributions towards determining environmental quality. The paper concludes that any environmental policy cannot function effectively unless it takes other developmental policies into consideration. Leaving socio-economic parameters aside, the enhancement of environmental quality can prove to be extremely difficult to achieve, the evidence of which can be found from an analysis of Indian cities.

Confronting environmental quality and societal aspects: An environmental Kuznets curve analysis for Indian cities

Interaction between environmental degradation and economic growth is a growing matter of interest among policymakers. Here we have estimated environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) for 139 Indian cities considering NO2 emissions. Study has been done for 2001&ndash;2013, and the data have been segregated by residential and industrial areas, and as well as low, medium, and high income areas. By virtue of different forms of EKC being found, policy level decisions have been designed. Moreover, non-rejection of EKC hypothesis reemphasized the impact of growth catalyzing economic policy decisions on environment.

Environmental Kuznets curve estimation for NO2 emission: A case of Indian cities

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the association between inequality in energy intensity and social inequality in Indian cities, as these are the two predominant constituents of inequality in Indian socio-economic scenario. This study uses a bivariate cointegration based error correction model for assessing the causal association between the two inequality parameters, which are derived by using Theil’s second measure. Given the sustainable development objective set by the government of India, interaction between these two parameters may prove out to be significant for achievement of this objective. It has been hypothesized that nature of this interaction varies largely based on the nature of the cities, i.e. semi-urban, urban, and metropolitan. The analysis has been done on the full and segregated dataset to visualize how the interaction changes with the nature of the cities. For analysis purpose, data for 139 Indian cities for the period of 2001-2013 have been selected. From the data of income, population, and energy consumption, two parameters of this study have been designed by using Theil’s second measure. The analysis starts with checking the cross sectional dependence for both of the parameters. Subsequently, the stationarity of the data has been checked by using first generation unit root tests. Then, by employing the cointegration and error correction framework, the long run causal association has been assessed. For checking the short run causal association, Granger causality method has been applied. The data for this study have been collected form Ministry of Power, Govt. of India, Central Statistical Organization, India, and Census, India. Major findings of this study are, (a) for both the parameters and three segments, cross sections are independent, (b) the parameters are stationary at first difference, (c) there is long run cointegration relationship between them, and (d) the causal link between inequality in energy intensity and social inequality is unidirectional for the case of semi-urban cities, and it is bidirectional for the case of metropolitan and urban cities. For full dataset, causal link between inequality in energy intensity and social inequality is unidirectional. The Theil indices calculated for both the parameters show the trends of rising inequality for all the cities taken together. However, no significant trend was visualized for the individual strata of cities, for both of the parameters under consideration. This study summarizes that the economic growth achieved by India is not sustainable in nature. It can be achieved only by considering an inclusive growth framework, where social development will complement the growth objectives. Therefore, the fossil-fuel based economic growth agenda needs reconsideration, viewing the social dimensions of the cities.

Journal	International Journal of Green Economics
Publisher	Inderscience Publishers
ISSN	1744-9928
Open Access	No