Greenhouse Gas Emissions and its Main Drivers: a Panel Assessment for EU-27 Member States

TL;DR

This study analyzes the main drivers of greenhouse gas emissions in EU-27 countries from 2010 to 2019, highlighting the impact of economic activity, household consumption, waste, and renewable energy use.

Contribution

It provides a panel data assessment of key factors influencing emissions, emphasizing the importance of household energy structure and renewable energy share.

Findings

Positive link between GDP per capita and emissions

Household consumption and waste increase emissions

Renewable energy share has a low but negative effect

Abstract

This paper assesses the effects of greenhouse gas emissions drivers in EU-27 over the period 2010-2019, using a Panel EGLS model with period fixed effects. In particular, we focused our research on studying the effects of GDP, renewable energy, households energy consumption and waste on the greenhouse gas emissions. In this regard, we found a positive relationship between three independent variables (real GDP per capita, households final consumption per capita and waste generation per capita) and greenhouse gas emissions per capita, while the effect of the share of renewable energy in gross final energy consumption on the dependent variable proved to be negative, but quite low. In addition, we demonstrate that the main challenge that affects greenhouse gas emissions is related to the structure of households energy consumption, which is generally composed by environmentally harmful fuels. This suggests the need to make greater efforts to support the shift to a green economy based on a higher energy efficiency.