Agriculture development and CO2 emissions nexus in Saudi Arabia

PLoS One. 2019 Dec 2;14(12):e0225865. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0225865. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

The agriculture sector may help to improve the environment of any country. The purpose of this research is to test the existence of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis while keeping the energy consumption and agriculture share in income into account and analyze their effects on the CO2 emissions per capita of Saudi Arabia. We test both symmetrical, asymmetrical and quadratic effects of agriculture sector on the CO2 emissions. An inverted U-shaped relationship between gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and CO2 emissions per capita is found. Hence, EKC hypothesis is validated with a turning point at GDP per capita of 77,068 constant Saudi Riyal. Further, a negative and significant effect of agriculture sector on the CO2 emissions per capita has been found both in symmetrical and asymmetrical analyses. The magnitudes of effects of increasing and decreasing agriculture share are found statistically different on the CO2 emissions, and rising agriculture share in GDP has larger effect than that of decreasing agriculture share. An inverted U-shaped relationship is also found between agriculture share in GDP and CO2 emissions per capita with a turning point at 3.22% agriculture share in GDP.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Agriculture*
  • Carbon Dioxide / chemistry*
  • Economic Development*
  • Gross Domestic Product*
  • Humans
  • Saudi Arabia

Substances

  • Carbon Dioxide

Grants and funding

This project was supported by Deanship of Scientific Research at Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University Alkharj, Saudi Arabia under the project NO. 2019/02/10499. The Deanship of Scientific Research at Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University Alkharj, Saudi Arabia had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The S&P Global Market Intelligence supports in the form of salaries for author [Maham Furqan], but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.