EVALUATION OF DECOUPLING OF GDP, ENERGY, AND CO2 EMISSIONS IN CENTRAL ASIA

Abstract

Economic growth generally causes enhanced energy consumption, which in turn will lead to a rise in carbon dioxide emissions. The concept used to destroy the relationship between energy consumption and economic growth which is called decoupling have attracted the attention of scholars. This paper investigates the decoupling relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in each of five Central Asian countries from 1990 to 2014. We analyzed our data in the framework of two decoupling models: the Tapio model and the OECD decoupling model. In general, most Central Asian countries' total energy consumption and GDP initially dropped and followingly raised over the period of 1993-2010. Change of the republican system of government to the independent country after the collapse of the USSR and difficulties that appeared during the transition of the planned economy to a market economy in the economic sector were two main driving above mentioned phenomenon. We established the popular four decoupling statues: expansive negative decoupling, weak decoupling, strong decoupling, and expansive coupling. Based on data consolidation calculation it is clearly shown that there exists a significant environmental pressure on economic growth in Central Asia. However, in order to get full information, we have to investigate decoupling analysis per country separately.