Are Energy Consumption, Population Density and Exports Causing Environmental Damage in China? Autoregressive Distributed Lag and Vector Error Correction Model Approaches

This paper investigates whether energy consumption, population density, and exports are the main factors causing environmental damage in China. Using annual data from 1971–2018, unit root tests applied for stationarity analyses, Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds used long-run relationships between variables. A Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) Granger approach is employed to examine causal amongst Our findings show that selected variables cointegrated, consumption economic growth identified as reasons CO2 emissions both short-run long-run. In contrast, reduce Short-run unidirectional causality found exports, exports. Moreover, links exist Five policy recommendations made following obtained results.