Nexus between energy use, industrialization, forest area, and carbon dioxide emissions: New insights from Russia

Abstract

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, especially carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, contribute significantly to global climate change, which in turn threatens the environment, development, and sustainability. The current study examines the nexus between Russia's energy consumption, industrialization, and forest cover in terms of the country's total CO₂ emissions. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing technique and the Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) methodology were used to examine time series data from 1990 to 2020. Evidence of cointegration between the variables was found using the ARDL bounds test. An increase of 1% in energy consumption and industrialization is predicted to result in an increase of 1.3% and 0.23% in CO₂ emissions in Russia. In addition, it has been estimated that a 1% increase in forest area might lead to a 4.29% reduction in CO₂ emissions in the long run. This article proposed policies to reduce emissions in Russia and assure environmental sustainability through the use of renewable energy sources, green industry, and sustainable forest management.