Evaluating the Decarbonisation Process of Growth in Türkiye in the Context of the Environmental Kuznets Curve

This study aims to test the decarbonisation of economic growth in Türkiye in two stages. Firstly, the relationship between per capita income and carbon emissions per capita in Türkiye is examined in the context of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) to determine if the EKC is valid. In the second stage, the parameters that either increase or decrease carbon emissions in Türkiye are investigated to analyse the impacts of explanatory variables on carbon emissions. There are two different methods are used in this paper to test the validity of the EKC model and determine the factors that affect carbon emissions. The validity of the EKC for Türkiye is examined using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) method, and the factors that either increase or decrease the carbon emissions are analysed in by using the EGARCH model. ARDL results show that the EKC is valid for Türkiye, and Türkiye's EKC curve is inverse U-shaped. This finding indicates that an increase in per capita income in Türkiye will lead to a rise in per capita carbon emissions in the early stages of economic growth, but after a certain level of per capita income, per capita carbon emissions will start to fall. On the other hand, EGARCH results indicate that renewable energy use and greater energy efficiency mitigate carbon emissions, whereas fossil fuel use leads to higher emissions. These results reveal that in order to have decarbonisation of economic growth in Türkiye, it is important to replace fossil energy fuels with renewable energy sources and increase energy efficiency.