Research Database

There is an increasing interest in investigating the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis because it suggests the existence of a turning point in the economy that will lead to a sustainable development path. Although many studies have focused on the EKC, only a few empirical studies have focused on analyzing the EKC with specific reference to Indonesia, and none of them have examined the potential of renewable energy sources within the EKC framework. This study attempts to estimate the EKC in the case of Indonesia for the period of 1971–2010 by considering the role of renewable energy in electricity production, using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration as the estimation method. We found an inverted U-shaped EKC relationship between economic growth and CO2 emissions in the long run. The estimated turning point was found to be 7729 USD per capita, which lies outside of our sample period. The beneficial impacts of renewable energy on CO2 emission reduction are observable both in the short run and in the long run. Our work has important implications both for policymakers and for the future development of renewable energy in Indonesia.

This paper assesses competing outlooks for energy mix in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), highlighting the paradox of its fossil fuel-dominated outlooks when contrasted with its aspirations to move toward a green energy mix, and reviews green energy strategies using the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis method. The paper argues that despite the looming brown outlooks due to the expected surge of coal, the ASEAN region has many advantages in providing cleaner energy for its green vision. However, reduction of CO2 emissions has not been explicitly set in the region’s policy agenda and thus green energy potential is underdeveloped. To achieve a greener energy mix, ASEAN needs to make further efforts such as cleaner use and removal of subsidies of fossil fuels, promotion of renewables and energy efficiency, regional market integration and connectivity, and execution of existing plans by nations. Ultimately, each of these strategies will require sustained leadership, political determination, and concrete actions from stakeholders, in particular, national governments across the region.

This study examines whether policies to promote renewable electricity generation are likely to be effective by applying panel unit root and stationarity tests to time series data on renewable electricity generation for 115 countries over the period 1980-2008. We find that for the panel as a whole, and almost three quarters of the individual countries, renewable electricity generation is characterized by a unit root. This result implies that policies to promote renewable electricity generation, such as renewable portfolio standards, which result in annual increases in renewable energy and, as such, which represent permanent positive shocks to the long-run growth path of renewable electricity generation, will be more effective in increasing renewable electricity generation than policies with a pre-specified time horizon.