Activity-determined Steps on the Growth of Atmospheric CO2 Concentration Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) at the Country Level: Taiwan’s Empirical Evidence

Abstract

Taiwan’s atmospheric CO2 concentration is half in compliance on the formation of a environmental Kuznets curve (EKC), and the major contributor of direct CO2 emissions in Taiwan is from the power generation sector using coal and natural gas as fuel. Atmospheric CO2 concentration has been found to have the linear increment with stepwise fluctuations every five years during the period 2001-2018. Activity-determined steps were proposed noting that there is a proportion process for the increase of CO2 coming directly from the emission source of power plants and the source from the marginal sea sink to atmosphere sink due to memory delay-releasing. The alternative occurring events of EI Nino and La Nina in the West-Pacific region exactly match the fluctuations every five years, and the difference between the monitored atmospheric CO2 concentration with an empirical equation of calculated atmospheric CO2 concentration from the electricity structure in a single country level is a new indictor for the occurrences of EI Nino and La Nina phenomena in this region. Results also showed that the atmospheric CO2 concentration in Taiwan for the year 2035 is predicted to be as high as 430 ppm, due to a 50% natural gas energy policy. Our study provides a causal explanation for why atmospheric CO2 concentration has a linear increase shape with stepwise fluctuations for a single country. Our study has also proved that the linear increment with stepwise fluctuations also exhibits a EKC pattern.