Energy consumption and CO2 emission under economic uncertainty: evidence from Asia-Pacific countries

Purpose This paper employs yearly data from 1965 to 2022 to examine carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), real GDP (Y), GDP per capita (Y2), energy use (EU) and economic policy uncertainty (EPU) in Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Design/methodology/approach The constraint test for the autoregressive distributed lag model evaluates the sufficiency of both short- and long-term fitness. Findings The findings indicate a positive correlation between the EU and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in Australia, China, South Korea and Japan during a limited time. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that only Japan and New Zealand exhibit a positive link between energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions over an extended period. The link between GDP and GDP per capita and CO2 emissions varies across various nations. Originality/value The study provides country-specific evidence on the relationship between economic policy uncertainty and CO2 emissions in the Asia-Pacific region. The results indicate that the effects of economic policy uncertainty on emissions are heterogeneous across countries, with no uniform short-run or long-run pattern. These findings highlight the importance of context-specific environmental and economic policies rather than one-size-fits-all approaches.