Contextualising on the internationally low oil prices era and historically high oil production in USA and refusal to honour the commitments under Paris Agreement (COP: 21), this study investigates the role of education, oil prices and natural resources on energy demand and CO₂ emissions in the USA for the period of 1976–2016. In so doing, we employed a bounds testing approach to cointegration accounting for structural breaks in the series. Key findings suggest the presence of a long-run association between underlying variables. The abundance of natural resources and economic growth of the US economy seem to weigh on environmental quality by increasing energy consumption and carbon emissions. Oil prices show a negative association with energy consumption as well as carbon emissions suggesting that a low oil prices regime can lead to an increase in carbon emissions and energy consumption. Interestingly, education seems to play an important role by reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions, resultantly improving the US environmental quality. Our findings have profound environmental implications in terms of efforts to tackle climate change and meeting the Paris agreement (COP: 21) ambitions with reality and USA policy stance.

针对国际低油价时代和美国历史上高油产量的背景，并拒绝履行《巴黎协定》（COP：21）下的承诺，本研究调查了教育，油价和自然资源在能源需求和CO _{2方面的作用。}1976-2016年期间美国的碳排放量。为此，我们采用边界测试方法对协整进行了解释，以解决该系列中的结构性断裂。主要发现表明基础变量之间存在长期关联。自然资源的丰富和美国经济的经济增长似乎通过增加能源消耗和碳排放量而对环境质量造成压力。石油价格与能源消耗以及碳排放量呈负相关关系，这表明低油价制度可能导致碳排放量和能源消耗量增加。有趣的是，教育似乎在减少能源消耗和减少碳排放方面起着重要作用，从而改善了美国的环境质量。