The Effect of Hydro-Power Energy Consumption on Carbon Dioxide Emissions, Ecological Footprint, and Carbon Footprint in Iran

Increasing global warming is the result of the gradual accumulation of greenhouse gases in the living environment. Energy production systems in general and electricity production in particular is one of the effective factors in the production of greenhouse gases. Therefore, on the one hand, environmental considerations and on the other hand, the limitation of fossil resources have made it necessary to change the energy production system and replace fossil fuels. In this regard, the use of renewable energy resources such as hydropower can be a good alternative to fossil fuels. This article has studied the effect of hydropower consumption on Iran's environment. Hence article has estimated the short-run and long-run relationship between hydropower consumption and different measures of environmental degradation including ecological footprint, carbon footprint, and CO2 emission in the Iranian economy during 1980-2018. For this purpose, the Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach has been used. The estimation of the specified models indicates the existence of a long-run relationship between the variables included in these models and shows that in the short and long run, there is a significant negative relationship between hydropower consumption and carbon dioxide emissions, and carbon footprints. In other words, the use of hydropower in the short and long run reduces the carbon footprint and emissions of carbon dioxide. Hydropower also affects the ecological footprint in the short run.