Revisiting the environmental Kuznets curve in a global economy

The present study deals with an empirical investigation between CO2 emissions, energy intensity, economic growth and globalization using annual data over the period of 1970–2010 for Turkish economy. We applied unit root test and cointegration approach in the presence of structural breaks. The direction of causality between the variables is investigated by applying the VECM Granger causality approach. Our results confirmed the existence of cointegration between the series. The empirical evidence reported that energy intensity and economic growth (globalization) increase (condense) CO2 emissions. The results also validated the presence of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). The causality analysis shows bidirectional causality between economic growth and CO2 emissions. This implies that economic growth can be boosted at the cost of environment.