The relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growth as to carbon (CO2) emissions: The case of Turkey

While people's needs are constantly growing, they exceed consumption limits and live today without thinking the needs of future generations. Because of such consumption habits, human beings consume more than the Earth's ecosystem can produce and destroy their own future. However, while meeting their needs, people can build their economic and social development in line with the principle of sustainable development without destroying the needs of future generations. Energy has emerged as one of the important resources that affect the economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. The energy needs of countries increase in direct proportion with their economic growth. The fact that energy is supplied from fossil fuels threatens a sustainable environment due to harmful gases released into the atmosphere as a result of burning fossil fuels. In addition, dependency to abroad in terms of energy stands as an obstacle to the sustainable development and socio-economic development of countries. When we look at energy dependency of Turkey to abroad, it can be seen that the country's dependency ratio has been increasing day by day in line with its fast economic growth. While the ratio was 52% in 1990, it was 68% in 2000, 72% in 2011 and 73% in 2018. Meeting this energy need in a sustainable and secure manner and reducing foreign dependency are among the primary policy goals of Turkey. In line with these policies, Turkey needs to accelerate its economic growth by paying more attention to renewable energy sources. For this end, the existence and direction of the relationship between economic growth and renewable energy consumption within the framework of carbon emission (CO2) for both a sustainable environment and a sustainable development in Turkey during the 1990-2015 period was investigated in this study. Engle-Granger and Gregory-Hansen cointegration tests and the "Toda-Yamamoto" causality test are used for the analysis. As a result of this study, a unidirectional causality relationship was found from economic growth to renewable energy consumption.