ESTIMATING CO2 EMISSIONS FROM ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN PAKISTAN

Abstract

The main culprit behind the changing climate is carbon dioxide (CO2) along with other greenhouse gases and the impacts so far have been extremely severe. The forecast of CO2 emission is very crucial, especially for Pakistan as it is one of the top victims of climate change and extreme weather events. This study includes the forecast of CO2 emissions by using Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) models and regression analysis. The emission data was obtained from globally available emission inventories and the forecast was done till 2030. This is the business as usual (BAU) scenario. Five other scenarios have also been developed for CO2 emission in the country till 2020, predicting it further by the end 2030. The scenarios developed are CPEC scenario, 20% increase and decrease from BAU scenarios and 40% increase and decrease from the BAU scenarios. These attempt to estimate the impactful emissions reduction percentage, which the country needs to adopt and other necessary changes in the existing policies of the country. The study clearly indicates that the emissions are going to increase by approximately 60% when the high priority energy projects under China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) will get operational, roughly by 2020. Under these situations the forecast shows increased CO2 emissions and the country would not be able to meet its NDCs pledge at COP21, by 2030. Additionally, regression was carried out with the help of three independent variables; fossil fuel consumption, cement production and energy production. Regression results clearly indicate that the CO2 emissions will steadily increase with the increase in all the variables. This relation was found to be statistically significant with minimum error.