References

gesj

GEOGRAPHY, ENVIRONMENT, SUSTAINABILITY

2071-93882542-1565

Russian Geographical Society

10.24057/2071-9388-2025-3754

gesj-3984

Research Article

RESEARCH PAPER

Статьи

Impact Of Coal-Based Electricity Generation, Land Use Change, Steel And Cement Production On CO2 Emissions: Evidence From Eastern European And Central Asian Countries

Lobanov

Mikhail M.

Nakhimovskiy Prospekt 32, Moscow, 117218

Zvezdanović Lobanova

Jelena

Kraljice Natalije 45, Belgrade, 11000

jzvezdanovic@idn.org.rs

Milinčić

Miroljub

Studentski trg 3, Belgrade, 11000

Zvezdanovic

Milan

Kraljice Ane bb, Belgrade, 11000

Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of SciencesRussian FederationInstitute of Social SciencesSerbiaFaculty of Geography, University of BelgradeSerbiaAcademy for National SecuritySerbia

2025

07042025

181139151

2025

Lobanov M.M., Zvezdanović Lobanova J., Milinčić M., Zvezdanovic M.

Данная работа распространяется под лицензией Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://ges.rgo.ru/jour/article/view/3984

The problem of studying carbon footprint factors is one of the key ones for understanding the relationship between socio-economic development and atmospheric pollution. We employ a panel quantile regression approach to reveal the impact of the energy sector (namely, coal-based electricity and hydropower generation), manufacturing (steel and cement production), and agriculture (cropland area change) on CO2 emissions in 16 Eastern European and 4 Central Asian countries for the period from 2000 to 2020. We provide evidence for a U-shaped environmental Kuznets curve for countries with a lower carbon footprint, while the countries with the highest emissions are found to have an inverted U-shaped relationship between them and GDP per capita. The relationship between electricity production from coal and emissions is positive and significant at all quantiles (except the 30th quantile), and for hydropower, it is negative and significant from the 20th to 70th quantile: a 1% increase in generation leads to CO2 emissions increase by 0.08-0.20% and a decrease by 0.04-0.07%, respectively. Crude steel production positively influences emissions (from the 10th to 80th quantile levels): a 1% increase in the output of steel products results in carbon emissions increase by 0.05-0.07%. The relationship between cropland expansion and emissions is positive from the 40th quantile, but the coefficient shows high significance only at the 80th quantile. These findings allow us to conclude that CO2 emissions reduction in Eastern European and Central Asian countries could be achieved by the replacement of coal in the electricity generation structure by renewables (including hydropower), the introduction of sustainable land use practices to preserve carbon sinks, and technological modernization of crude steel production.

CO2 emissionscoal-based electricity generationhydropower generationland use changesteel productioncement production

This paper was written as part of the 2025 Research Program of the Institute of Social Sciences with the support of the Ministry of Science, Technological Development, and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia.

References1

Akram R., Chen F., Khalid F., Ye Z. and Majeed M. T. (2020). Heterogeneous effects of energy efficiency and renewable energy on carbon emissions: Evidence from developing countries. Journal of Cleaner Production, 247, 119122, DOI:10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119122.

Allard A., Takman J., Uddin G. S. and Ahmed A. (2018). The N-shaped environmental Kuznets curve: an empirical evaluation using a panel quantile regression approach. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 25, 5848–5861, DOI: 10.1007/s11356-017-0907-0.

Al-Mulali U. (2014). Investigating the impact of nuclear energy consumption on GDP growth and CO2 emission: A panel data analysis. Progress in Nuclear Energy, 73, 172–178, DOI: 10.1016/j.pnucene.2014.02.002.

Al-Mulali U., Ozturk I. and Lean H.H. (2015). The influence of economic growth, urbanization, trade openness, financial development, and renewable energy on pollution in Europe. Natural Hazards, 79, 621–644, DOI: 10.1007/s11069-015-1865-9.

Ang J.B. (2007). CO2 emissions, energy consumption, and output in France. Energy Policy, 35(10), 4772–4778, DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2007.03.032.

Ang J.B. (2009). CO2 emissions, research and technology transfer in China. Ecological Economics, 68(10), 2658–2665, DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.05.002.

Apergis N. and Ozturk I. (2015). Testing Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis in Asian countries. Ecological Indicators, 52, 16–22. DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.11.026.

Atici C. (2009). Carbon emissions in Central and Eastern Europe: environmental Kuznets curve and implications for sustainable development. Sustainable Development, 17(3), 155–160, DOI:10.1002/sd.372.

Attílio L. A., Faria J. R. and Rodrigues M. (2023). Does monetary policy impact CO2 emissions? A GVAR analysis. Energy Economics, 119, p.106559, DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2023.106559.

Balsalobre-Lorente D., Shahbaz M., Murshed M. and Nuta F.M. (2023). Environmental impact of globalization: The case of central and Eastern European emerging economies. Journal of Environmental Management, 341, p.118018, DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.118018.

Bilgili F., Balsalobre-Lorente D., Kuşkaya S., Ünlü F., Gençoğlu P. and Rosha P. (2021). The role of hydropower energy in the level of CO2 emissions: An application of continuous wavelet transform. Renewable Energy, 178, 283–294, DOI:10.1016/j.renene.2021.06.015.

Cade B. and Noon B. (2003). A gentle introduction to quantile regression for ecologists. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 1(8), 412–420, DOI: 10.1890/1540-9295(2003)001[0412:AGITQR]2.0.CO;2.

Cheng C., Ren X., Dong K., Dong X. and Wang Z. (2021). How does technological innovation mitigate CO2 emissions in OECD countries? Heterogeneous analysis using panel quantile regression. Journal of Environmental Management, 280, p.111818, DOI:10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.111818.

De Bruyn S.M., van den Bergh J.C. and Opschoor J.B. (1998). Economic growth and emissions: reconsidering the empirical basis of environmental Kuznets curves. Ecological Economics, 25(2), 161–175, DOI:10.1016/S0921-8009(97)00178-X.

Destek M.A. and Sarkodie S.A. (2019). Investigation of environmental Kuznets curve for ecological footprint: the role of energy and financial development. Science of the Total Environment, 650(2), 2483–2489, DOI:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.10.017.

Dogan E. and Seker F. (2016). Determinants of CO2 emissions in the European Union: the role of renewable and non-renewable energy. Renewable Energy, 94, 429–439, DOI:10.1016/j.renene.2016.03.078.

Friedl B. and Getzner M. (2003). Determinants of CO2 emissions in a small open economy. Ecological Economics, 45(1), 133–148, DOI:10.1016/S0921-8009(03)00008-9.

Ganda F. (2019). The impact of innovation and technology investments on carbon emissions in selected organisation for economic cooperation and development countries. Journal of Cleaner Production, 217, 469–483, DOI:10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.01.235.

Güney T. (2022). Solar energy, governance and CO2 emissions. Renewable Energy, 184, 791–798, DOI:10.1016/j.renene.2021.11.124.

IPCC (2014). Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. [online] Available at: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_full.pdf (accessed 27 August 2024).

Kasman A. and Duman Y.S. (2015). CO2 emissions, economic growth, energy consumption, trade and urbanization in new EU member and candidate countries: a panel data analysis. Economic Modelling, 44, 97–103, DOI:10.1016/j.econmod.2014.10.022.

Koenker R. and Bassett Jr G. (1978). Regression quantiles. Econometrica, 46(1), 33–50, DOI: 10.2307/1913643.

Li R., Jiang H., Sotnyk I., Kubatko O. and Almashaqbeh Y.A.I. (2020). The CO2 emissions drivers of post-communist economies in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Atmosphere, 11(9), p.1019, DOI:10.3390/atmos11091019.

Magazzino C., Cerulli G., Shahzad U. and Khan S. (2023). The nexus between agricultural land use, urbanization, and greenhouse gas emissions: Novel implications from different stages of income levels. Atmospheric Pollution Research, 14(9), p.101846, DOI:10.1016/j.apr.2023.101846.

Nguyen A.T. (2019). The Relationship between Economic Growth, Energy Consumption and Carbon Dioxide Emissions: Evidence from Central Asia. Eurasian Journal of Business and Economics, 12(24), 1–15, DOI:10.17015/ejbe.2019.024.01.

Pao H.T. and Tsai C.M. (2011). Modeling and forecasting the CO2 emissions, energy consumption, and economic growth in Brazil. Energy, 36(5), 2450–2458, DOI:10.1016/j.energy.2011.01.032.

Paramati S.R., Mo D. and Gupta R. (2017). The effects of stock market growth and renewable energy use on CO2 emissions: Evidence from G20 countries. Energy Economics, 66, 360–371, DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2017.06.025.

Pejović B., Karadžić V., Dragašević Z. and Backović T. (2021). Economic growth, energy consumption and CO2 emissions in the countries of the European Union and the Western Balkans. Energy Reports, 7, 2775–2783, DOI: 10.1016/j.egyr.2021.05.011.

Petrović P. and Lobanov M.M. (2020). The impact of R&D expenditures on CO2 emissions: evidence from sixteen OECD countries. Journal of Cleaner Production, 248, p.119187, DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119187.

Raihan A. (2023). The dynamic nexus between economic growth, renewable energy use, urbanization, industrialization, tourism, agricultural productivity, forest area, and carbon dioxide emissions in the Philippines. Energy Nexus, 9, p.100180, DOI: 10.1016/j.nexus.2023.100180.

Raihan A. andTuspekova A. (2022). Role of economic growth, renewable energy, and technological innovation to achieve environmental sustainability in Kazakhstan. Current Research in Environmental Sustainability, 4, p.100165, DOI:10.1016/j.crsust.2022.100165.

Richmond A.K. and Kaufmann R.K. (2006). Is there a turning point in the relationship between income and energy use and/or carbon emissions? Ecological Economics, 56(2), 176–189, DOI:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2005.01.011.

Salahodjaev R., Sharipov K., Rakhmanov N. and Khabirov D. (2022). Tourism, renewable energy and CO2 emissions: evidence from Europe and Central Asia. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 24(11), 13282–13293, DOI: 10.1007/s10668-021-01993-x.

Salman M., Long X., Dauda L., Mensah C.N. and Muhammad S. (2019). Different impacts of export and import on carbon emissions across 7 ASEAN countries: A panel quantile regression approach. Science of The Total Environment, 686, 1019–1029, DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.06.019

Sarkodie S.A. and StrezovV. (2019). Effect of foreign direct investments, economic development and energy consumption on greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries. Science of Total Environment, 646, 862–871, DOI:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.07.365.

Shahnazi R. and Dehghan Shabani Z. (2021). The effects of renewable energy, spatial spillover of CO2 emissions and economic freedom on CO2 emissions in the EU. Renewable Energy, 169, 293–307, DOI:10.1016/j.renene.2021.01.016.

Simionescu M. (2021). The nexus between economic development and pollution in the European Union new member states. The role of renewable energy consumption. Renewable Energy, 179, 1767–1780, DOI:10.1016/j.renene.2021.07.142.

Simionescu M., Strielkowski W. and Gavurova B. (2022). Could quality of governance influence pollution? Evidence from the revised Environmental Kuznets Curve in Central and Eastern European countries. Energy Reports, 8, 809–819, DOI:10.1016/j.egyr.2021.12.031.

Solarin S.A., Al-Mulali U. and Ozturk I. (2017). Validating the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis in India and China: The role of hydroelectricity consumption. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 80, 1578–1587, DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2017.07.028.

Soytas U., Sari R. and Ewing B.T. (2007). Energy consumption, income, and carbon emissions in the United States. Ecological Economics, 62(3–4), 482–489, DOI:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2006.07.009.

Spawn S.A., Lark T.J. and Gibbs H.K. (2019). Carbon emissions from cropland expansion in the United States. Environmental Research Letters, 14(4), p.045009, DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/ab0399.

Torra M. and Boyce J.K. (1998). Income, inequality, and pollution: a reassessment of the environmental Kuznets curve. Ecological Economics, 25(2), 147–160, DOI: 10.1016/S0921-8009(97)00177-8.

Uğurlu E. (2022). Impacts of Renewable Energy on CO2 Emission: Evidence from the Visegrad Group Countries. Politics in Central Europe, 18(2), 295–315, DOI:10.2478/pce-2022-0013.

Voumik L. C., Mimi M.B. and Raihan A. (2023). Nexus between urbanization, industrialization, natural resources rent, and anthropogenic carbon emissions in South Asia: CS-ARDL approach. Anthropocene Science, 2(1), 48–61, DOI: 10.1007/s44177-023-00047-3

Wang S.S., Zhou D.Q., Zhou P. and Wang Q.W. (2011). CO2 emissions, energy consumption and economic growth in China: A panel data analysis. Energy Policy, 39(9), 4870–4875, DOI:10.1016/j.enpol.2011.06.032.

Xu B. and Lin B. (2016). A quantile regression analysis of China's provincial CO2 emissions: where does the difference lie? Energy Policy, 98, 328–342, DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2016.09.003.

Xu B. and Lin B. (2020). Investigating drivers of CO2 emission in China’s heavy industry: A quantile regression analysis. Energy, 206, 118159, DOI:10.1016/j.energy.2020.118159.

Zaman K. and Abd-el Moemen M. (2017). The influence of electricity production, permanent cropland, high technology exports, and health expenditures on air pollution in Latin America and the Caribbean Countries. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 76, 1004–1010, DOI:10.1016/j.rser.2017.03.103.

Zhang S. (2019). Environmental Kuznets curve revisit in Central Asia: the roles of urbanization and renewable energy. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 26(23), 23386–23398, DOI: 10.1007/s11356-019-05600-5.

Zhang X.P. and Cheng X.M. (2009). Energy consumption, carbon emissions, and economic growth in China. Ecological Economics, 68(10), 2706–2712, DOI:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.05.011.

Zheng H., Song M. and Shen Z. (2021). The evolution of renewable energy and its impact on carbon reduction in China. Energy, 237, 121639, DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2021.121639.

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest present.