Fossil fuel consumption and economic growth: causality relationship in the world

This paper analyzes cointegration and causality between fossil fuel consumption and economic growth in the world over the period 1971--2008. The estimation results indicate that fossil fuel consumption and GDP are cointegrated and there exists long-run unidirectional causality from fossil fuel consumption to GDP. This paper also investigates the nexus between nonfossil energy consumption and GDP, and shows that there is no causality between the variables. The conclusions are that reducing fossil fuel consumption may hamper economic growth, and that it is unlikely that nonfossil energy will substantially replace fossil fuels.