The energy–environment–growth nexus has been examined for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region, mainly using time series data. However, the important role of renewable energy and population has largely been ignored in previous studies. As such, this study is conducted to investigate a causal link between renewable energy usage, population, carbon dioxide emissions, and economic growth. In addition, a relatively new and advanced panel vector autoregressive model and the Granger non-causality test for heterogeneous panels are utilized with a sample of seven ASEAN countries for almost three decades since 1990. Key findings from this paper are as follows. First, renewable energy usage responds to population growth and leads to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Second, economic growth and renewable energy usage explain a substantial proportion of the change in energy consumption. Third, a bidirectional Granger causality does exist in each pair among energy consumption, economic growth and CO2 emissions. We argue that moderating population growth and extending renewable energy usage are vital to achieving sustainable economic growth in the ASEAN region.

中文翻译：

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东南亚国家可持续发展的可再生能源和人口增长

东南亚国家联盟 (ASEAN) 地区的能源-环境-增长关系已被研究，主要使用时间序列数据。然而，可再生能源和人口的重要作用在以前的研究中基本上被忽视了。因此，本研究旨在调查可再生能源使用、人口、二氧化碳排放和经济增长之间的因果关系。此外，自 1990 年以来的近 30 年中，对七个东盟国家的样本使用了相对较新和先进的面板向量自回归模型和异质面板的格兰杰非因果关系检验。本文的主要发现如下。首先，可再生能源的使用响应人口增长并导致二氧化碳 (CO2) 排放。第二，经济增长和可再生能源的使用解释了能源消费变化的很大一部分。第三，能源消费、经济增长和二氧化碳排放之间的每一对都存在双向格兰杰因果关系。我们认为，减缓人口增长和扩大可再生能源的使用对于实现东盟地区的可持续经济增长至关重要。