Time-varying impact of income and fossil fuel consumption on CO 2 emissions in India

This paper investigates the time-varying effects of fossil fuel consumption on CO2 emissions in India utilizing the time-varying cointegration test, allowing for multivariate long-run time-varying cointegration parameter developed by Bierens and Martins (2010) and the time-varying vector autoregressive (TVP-VAR) model developed by Primiceri (2005). The long-run time-varying coefficients reveal that GDP has a positive and increasing impact on CO2 emissions over time. Moreover, results confirm the polluting effects of all fossil fuels. Besides, the TVP-VAR model findings also demonstrate that changes in income and fossil fuel consumption have a positive and significant impact on environmental degradation. Coal is found to be the most polluting fuel, followed by oil consumption. Furthermore, the time-varying responses show that increased natural gas consumption has the least influence when compared to other fossil fuels on CO2 emissions.