The impact of the productive sectors on CO2 emissions in Pakistan

Abstract

Environmental and socio-economic factors have impacts in different directions and magnitudes. This study identifies which factors added to carbon dioxide emissions (CO₂Es) in the productive sectors during 1990–2019 in Pakistan. Logarithmic mean Divisia Index and intensity analysis were applied to estimate the key factors: carbonization, substitution, transformation, energy intensity, social economic affluence, and population effects. The results show that (i) the intensity effect illustrates CO₂E growth due to huge fossil fuel consumption. The sectorial energy substitution provides significant variation except for agriculture and other govt. sectors that increased by 0.12 % and 0.86 %, showing an efficient transition. (ii) The transformation factor showed a huge impact on raising CO₂Es from 1990 to 1995 and then provided a decline in the transformation of primary energy to final energy average by 5.24 %, with significant changes in energy efficiency. (iii) Social affluence and population factors' effects contribute 7.83 % and 3.81 % to CO₂Es, causing significant growth. However, weak results of the substitution effect in mitigating CO₂Es show that Pakistan has much to do in the future and has great potential to lessen CO₂Es using multiple resources. Finally, the most imperative contributions to sectoral energy intensity are efficiency and measures in various sectors, while the reduction in industrial share impacts structural change. The study provides necessary intuitions into policy implications, highlighting an alternative mitigation technology to attain the targeted goals in a short time since the driving factors of CO₂Es change across the subsectors.