Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and economic growth: A systematic review of two decades of research from 1995 to 2017

Over the past forty years the world economy has more than tripled (Knox et al., 2014). Despite economic growth raised standards of leaving in most countries, it was also responsible for an increase in CO₂ emissions and reduction in natural resources. The levels of emissions of CO₂ emissions are closely related to social, economic and industrial factors (Adom et al., 2012). CO₂ emissions are emitted in a number of ways such as burning of oil, coal, gas, petrol and also deforestation (Sanglimsuwan, 2011). The majority of previous studies for the past two decades has been intensively focused and confirmed the nexus among economic growth and energy use have a significant effect on the CO₂ emissions (Riti et al. (2017); Chaudhary and Bisai (2018); Bildirici (2017); Y.-J. Zhang et al. (2017); Robaina-Alves et al. (2016); Han et al. (2018); J. Song et al. (2018); Zhao et al. (2017); Alam et al. (2016); Antonakakis et al. (2017); Bekhet et al. (2017); He et al. (2017); Chiu (2017); Zhao et al. (2017)), for example, Riti et al. (2017) investigated relationships among economic growth, CO₂ emissions and economic growth between the years of 1970 to 2015 in China by using the theory of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). Bildirici (2017), analyzed the relationship among biofuel consumption, economic growth, CO₂ emissions and militarization over the period of 1984–2015 in United State by using Panel autoregressive distributive lag model (ARDL), Canonical Cointegration Regression, Dynamic OLS and Fully Modified OLS. The results of this article demonstrated that; there existed the bi-directional link among economic growth, biofuel consumption, also, biofuel consumption, economic growth, CO₂ emissions and militarization, in addition; there was a bi-directional relationship between CO₂ emissions and biofuel consumption. Y.-J. Zhang et al. (2017) investigated the linkage between CO₂ emissions from household consumption and EC from 2000 to 2010 period by employing the input-output model in China. The outcomes of this study found that, there existed the indirect link between energy use and CO₂ emissions. Han et al. (2018) explored the link between fossil fuel-induced CO₂ emissions, economic growth and infrastructural materials in China. The findings Granger tests of this study found that; there was the unidirectional relationship between economic growth, CO₂ emissions and urbanization to material stocks. J. Song et al. (2018) used an input-output model to analysis the link between energy use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG). The outcomes of this study shown that; the amount of GHG and energy utilization reduce based on future planning in China and related sectors. Zhao et al. (2017) examined the decoupling impact of economic growth from CO₂ emissions by using Log mean Divisia index (LMDI) approach during the period of 1992–2012. Alam et al. (2016), investigated the effect of population growth, income and energy use on CO₂ emissions. The outcomes of this article concluded that, CO₂ emissions increased with increasing the income and energy use in four selected countries, and there existed the significant link between population growth and CO₂ emissions in India and Brazil and insignificant relationship in China and Indonesia. Antonakakis et al. (2017), investigated and analysis the dynamic interrelationship based on output–energy–environment nexus, CO₂ emissions, energy use and economic growth from the period of 1971–2011. The outcomes of this article shown that, the effect of the several kinds of energy CO₂ emissions on energy use and economic growth is heterogeneous and there is the bidirectional causal link between total economic growth and energy use. Bekhet et al. (2017), explored the relationship among financial development, CO₂ emissions, economic growth and energy use between 1980 and 2011. The outcomes of this article revealed that, economic growth increased CO₂ emissions in some countries like, Qatar, Saudi Arabia. Bahrain and Oman, also financial development was the main driver for reduction of energy emissions. He et al. (2017), investigated the relationship between CO₂ emissions, affluence, population and technology. The outcomes of this article revealed that, there is U relationship between CO₂ emissions and urbanization in three regions, and CO₂ emissions increase the income. The results of this paper found that, reducing the energy usage enhancing energy efficiency and improving clean energy usage can successfully affluence the influences of real income on CO₂ emissions. Zhao et al. (2017), analyzed the decoupling impact of economic growth on CO₂ emissions. The outcomes of this article demonstrated that, economic activity and energy intensity level have the critical influence for all sectors, and industrial sector was the most important factor which affects the decoupling in China.

In general, the authors of these papers have concluded that since CO₂ emissions attribute to economic growth, a reduction in emissions may not be a desirable outcome in emerging and developed nations. Concerning the nexus between economic growth and CO₂ emissions, there are three points of view in the literature: the first considers that economic growth causes CO₂ emissions and consequently, the higher the growth of a country's economy is, the higher the demand for energy becomes; the second states that there is a causal nexus in both directions between CO₂ emissions and economic growth whereas the last one, in contrast to the three aforementioned, argues that there is no causality running among them and thus the so-called neutrality hypothesis takes place. In this case, energy conservation policies should be appropriate to cope with the reduction of CO₂ emissions without affecting economic growth. Understanding the nexus between CO₂ emissions and economic growth will help economies in formulating energy policies and developing energy resources in sustainable ways. In recent years, the nexus between economic growth and CO₂ emissions have investigated by past published papers with diverse approaches and techniques. This presents a considerable gap in the literature, as an in-depth study can reveal the significant variables that account to a link between CO₂ emissions and economic growth. Therefore, this review paper has been used the PRISMA statement to present the systematic review and meta-analysis of the relationship between CO₂ emissions and economic growth. In this regard, to present the comprehensive overview of the relationship between CO₂ emissions and economic growth, this study reviewed and grouped the selected articles by various importance criteria such as, application area, author, scope, technique, type of data analysis, research purpose, results and outcome, journals, year of publication and nationality of authors.

The remainder of this review study is structured as follows. Section 2 presented the linkage among economic growth, energy consumption and CO₂ emissions. Section 3 discusses research methodology of the paper; Section 4 presents results and findings of this paper based on the study aims. Section 5 of this paper attempted to discuss the obtain findings and results and Section 6 provides some conclude remarks, limitations of this study, and suggestions for future papers.

World-wide innovative achievements in the CO₂ emissions and economic growth

Global warming is a main concern in the world globalization in the perspective of industrial development. According to the current literature, the best strategy for controlling the world-wide warming is the low carbon practices. CO₂ emissions are one of the known GHG and it is important in sustaining a habitable for global warming and the vast majority of CO₂ emissions come from the human activities such as combustion fossil fuels. From GHG emissions, fossil fuels were covering the main source

Research methodology

In this review study, we have presented the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). For the first time, PRISMA statement was presented by Moher et al. (2009). There are two major measures for using PRISMA including the meta-analysis and systematic review. The major purpose of PRISMA statement is to aid scholars and practitioners for completing the report of clear literature review (Liberati et al., 2009). Several of previous studies have been conducted

Classifying the papers by application areas

Although categorizing and merging of the selected articles in fields of CO₂ emissions are complex, nevertheless, for these classifying and grouping, we used the opinions of experts. Consequently; based on experts' opinions, we categorized the articles in nine different indicators, including CO₂ emissions and economic growth, CO₂ emissions, economic growth and electricity consumption, CO₂ emissions, economic growth and renewable energy, CO₂ emissions, economic growth and population, CO₂

Discussions

A study about greenhouse gases is very important lately as a result of their contribution to climate change and its consequences on human life, biodiversity, the environment and vegetation. Moreover, the study of carbon dioxide and factors that contribute to its emissions is much more important since it's the largest GHG emitted hence the largest contributor to climate change. The nation should be mindful of the kind of multinational corporations allowed to produce in it. It should allow

Conclusion

This study aimed to review papers that focused on relationship between CO₂ emissions, economic growth and other indicators in nine different indicators' relationship and that were published from 1995 to 2017 in 55 international journals accessible in Web of Science database. The results of this paper indicated that 23 papers investigations were related to CO₂ emissions and economic growth. In addition, 46 papers focused on the relationship of CO₂ emissions, economic growth and

Acknowledgement

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors would like to thank the Research Management Center (RMC) at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia for supporting and funding this research under the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) (Vote no. FRGS/1/2017/SS08/UTM/02/5 and Vote no: FRGS/1/2016/WAB12/UTM/01/2).