Energy for economic growth, industrialization, environment and natural resources: Living with just enough

This study investigates the causal relationship between energy consumption (i.e., nuclear energy consumption, electricity power consumption and fossil fuels energy consumption) and economic growth; energy consumption and industrialization (i.e., industrial GDP, beverages and cigarettes); energy consumption and environmental degradation (i.e., carbon dioxide emissions, population density and water resources); and finally, energy consumption and resource depletion (i.e., mineral depletion, energy depletion, natural depletion and net forest depletion) in Pakistan over a period of 1975–2011. The Granger causality (GC) test in the frequency domain using the Pierce framework has been employed. This GC test in the frequency domain relies on a modified version of the coefficient of coherence, which they estimate in a nonparametric fashion and for which they derive the distributional properties. The results infer that there exists uni-directional causality running from nuclear energy to industrial GDP, nuclear energy to water resources; and nuclear energy to carbon dioxide emissions but not vice versa. Similarly, electric power consumption Granger cause agriculture GDP but not other way around, further, there is a bi-directional causality running between electric power consumption to population density in Pakistan. Fossil fuel Granger cause industrial GDP and there is a bidirectional causality running between fossil fuel and population density. Moreover, the findings show that the nature of causality among nuclear energy consumption & agriculture; nuclear energy consumption & population density; electric power consumption & cigarettes production; fossil fuel & cigarettes; and fossil fuels and agriculture value added are in favour of the neutrality hypothesis in Pakistan. The conclusion has been strengthen and have a very strong implications in the context of Pakistan, where we have economic and financial constraints, and thus agreeing the bottom line, “living with the just enough”.