Can Energy Efficiency Help in Achieving Carbon-Neutrality Pledges? A Developing Country Perspective Using Dynamic ARDL Simulations
, Soumen Rej 2, Sourav Mohan Saha 3, Joshua Chukwuma Onwe 4, Nnamdi Nwulu 5, Festus Victor Bekun 6,7,* and Amjad Taha 8
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
A well-written and structured paper where the gaps in knowledge were discussed and the importance and methodology of the current work were explained. Two suggestions to improve the paper:
1. Please explain all abbreviations that appear for the first time in paper. For instance, line 129 FMOLS appears but it is explained in line 284.
2. line 305: "All variables are positively skewed except for MVA." Could the authors please explain what this means and implies.
Author Response
RESPONSE LETTER
The authors are thankful to editor and anonymous referees for their constructive comments on the paper entitled “Can energy efficiency help in achieving carbon-neutrality pledge? A developing country perspective using dynamic ARDL simulations” with manuscript Ms. No. sustainability-1758802 to improve the quality of our paper. We have reviewed the comments and generally agree with those. Accordingly, we have made changes in the paper in line with the referees’ observations to the extent practicable. We take this opportunity to thank each of the individuals involved in the process.
Reviewer #1
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
A well-written and structured paper where the gaps in knowledge were discussed and the importance and methodology of the current work were explained. Two suggestions to improve the paper:
Response: Many thanks for reviewing our manuscript and giving an opportunity to improve the manuscript quality. We have revised all section according to your valuable comments by the respected reviewer.
- Please explain all abbreviations that appear for the first time in paper. For instance, line 129 FMOLS appears but it is explained in line 284.
Response: We have explained all abbreviated terms in their first appearance. We have corrected our mistakes. Thanks for your meticulous feedback.
- line 305: "All variables are positively skewed except for MVA." Could the authors please explain what this means and implies.
Response: We have explained this in the discussion (Line 319-322)
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript assesses and discusses the importance of the applicable plans for reducing CO2 emissions and the manufacturing sector's intensive energy use. Both goals are analyzed to understand if they are complementary or divergent from each other. The study found that energy efficiency and CO2 emissions have a robust bidirectional connection and that India's GDP is a crucial indicator of CO2 emissions. Also, solely looking at CO2 emissions will not shed light on environmental deterioration.
I found the investigation well defined and well written and found only minor format details to be addressed.
Details to be corrected:
1- lnCO2, subscript on CO2 (line 302)
2- Y-axis on Figures 2, 3, 4, and 5. It says "time," but the units are missing (months? or years?). Please add.
3- Figure 5. Please name the "x" and "y" axis, put units, and add the legend/description for both figures. Suggestion: to add (a) and (b) to each figure so that they can be adequately discussed.
4- Conclusion. The authors state, "The outcomes of this study, however, might be applied to other nations with comparable macroeconomic characteristics."
*If possible, mention a few examples of countries that the authors are aware of with similar characteristics.
*Also, comment on which information these nations should have in hand to perform a similar analysis.
Author Response
RESPONSE LETTER
The authors are thankful to editor and anonymous referees for their constructive comments on the paper entitled “Can energy efficiency help in achieving carbon-neutrality pledge? A developing country perspective using dynamic ARDL simulations” with manuscript Ms. No. sustainability-1758802 to improve the quality of our paper. We have reviewed the comments and generally agree with those. Accordingly, we have made changes in the paper in line with the referees’ observations to the extent practicable. We take this opportunity to thank each of the individuals involved in the process.
Reviewer # 2
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The manuscript assesses and discusses the importance of the applicable plans for reducing CO2 emissions and the manufacturing sector's intensive energy use. Both goals are analyzed to understand if they are complementary or divergent from each other. The study found that energy efficiency and CO2 emissions have a robust bidirectional connection and that India's GDP is a crucial indicator of CO2 emissions. Also, solely looking at CO2 emissions will not shed light on environmental deterioration.
I found the investigation well defined and well written and found only minor format details to be addressed.
Response: The authors appreciate the valuable input by the respected Reviewer 2 for this valuable feedback which will indeed encourage authors. In response to the valuable feedback, we addressed all of the comments raised by the respected reviewers.
Details to be corrected:
1- lnCO2, subscript on CO2 (line 302)
Response: Corrected, apologizing for the mistakes.
2- Y-axis on Figures 2, 3, 4, and 5. It says "time," but the units are missing (months? or years?). Please add.
Response: Many thanks for your insightful feedback. We have mentioned the unit in the figure caption or description.
3- Figure 5. Please name the "x" and "y" axis, put units, and add the legend/description for both figures. Suggestion: to add (a) and (b) to each figure so that they can be adequately discussed.
Response: We have made changes according to your comments.
4- Conclusion. The authors state, "The outcomes of this study, however, might be applied to other nations with comparable macroeconomic characteristics."
*If possible, mention a few examples of countries that the authors are aware of with similar characteristics.
*Also, comment on which information these nations should have in hand to perform a similar analysis.
Response: Thank you so much for your valuable suggestion. We have mentioned some example countries which can replicate this study with almost similar background such as Bangladesh, Pakistan other BRICS countries if all the utilized variables in this study become available.
Reviewer 3 Report
The contribution of this study is not clear in its current form. Moreover, there are no quantitative results from this study. Also, there is no explicit difference between these models in energy efficiency?
Some sentences are very general and irrelevant to this study and there is any evidence for this statement. Such as: "The findings of dynamic ARDL reveal that as income and MVA rise, environmental quality decreases, whilst EE improves environmental conditions in the long and short-run" How and what measure shows this fact?
Author Response
RESPONSE LETTER
The authors are thankful to editor and anonymous referees for their constructive comments on the paper entitled “Can energy efficiency help in achieving carbon-neutrality pledge? A developing country perspective using dynamic ARDL simulations” with manuscript Ms. No. sustainability-1758802 to improve the quality of our paper. We have reviewed the comments and generally agree with those. Accordingly, we have made changes in the paper in line with the referees’ observations to the extent practicable. We take this opportunity to thank each of the individuals involved in the process.
Reviewer # 3
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The contribution of this study is not clear in its current form. Moreover, there are no quantitative results from this study. Also, there is no explicit difference between these models in energy efficiency?
Response: Many thanks for your valuable feedback. We have modified and rewrite the contribution of this study in the Introduction section according to your comments (Line no 103-115). We performed very recently developed time series analysis to explore the nexus the energy efficiency, manufacturing value-added, economic growth, and the interaction of energy efficiency and manufacturing value added, and CO2 emission. This time series analysis includes a set of quantitative analysis, and provide more robust results than the traditional time series data analysis.
Some sentences are very general and irrelevant to this study and there is any evidence for this statement. Such as: "The findings of dynamic ARDL reveal that as income and MVA rise, environmental quality decreases, whilst EE improves environmental conditions in the long and short-run" How and what measure shows this fact?
Response: Thank you so much. However, we would like take the attention of respected reviewer. The mentioned line in the abstract get support from our empirical findings and it is entirely relevant to our empirical findings of baseline regression as showed in the Table 5. Also, we discussed these results in the main body of the manuscript in the discussion section.
Reviewer 4 Report
An extremely interesting article, both methodologically, theoretically and empirically. The following comments are meant as a discussion, to be used in the next steps of the research.
1. Why is primary electricity consumption used in calculations and not all energy consumption? This approach does not reflect the full complexity of the problem. What part of the total energy consumption does PEC have?
2. In conclusion, it is noted that indicators that better reflect the state of the environment should be used (ecological footprint). The question arises why the authors focused only on CO2 emissions. What is important for the environment is the total emission greenhouse gases. This is emphasised in many studies, while IPCC publications show how emissions of other greenhouse gases can be converted into CO2 equivalents.
3. The state of the environment as a volume of GHG emissions. I don't know if this is the right term, or if climate impact would fit better.
However, the conclusions that were given in the summary seem to be extremely relevant, especially those related to EE.
Author Response
RESPONSE LETTER
The authors are thankful to editor and anonymous referees for their constructive comments on the paper entitled “Can energy efficiency help in achieving carbon-neutrality pledge? A developing country perspective using dynamic ARDL simulations” with manuscript Ms. No. sustainability-1758802 to improve the quality of our paper. We have reviewed the comments and generally agree with those. Accordingly, we have made changes in the paper in line with the referees’ observations to the extent practicable. We take this opportunity to thank each of the individuals involved in the process.
Reviewer # 4
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
An extremely interesting article, both methodologically, theoretically and empirically. The following comments are meant as a discussion, to be used in the next steps of the research.
Response: Many thanks for giving us an opportunity to improve the quality of our manuscript. Based on your valuable suggestion, we have updated and revised the respective section.
Why is primary electricity consumption used in calculations and not all energy consumption? This approach does not reflect the full complexity of the problem. What part of the total energy consumption does PEC have?
Response: Thank you so much for your meticulous feedback. Following the previous literature, the share of primary electricity consumption (PEC) to GDP is used to assess energy efficiency (EE). PEC calculated a country's overall energy demand. It includes energy consumption by industry itself, losses during energy transformation (for example, from oil or gas to electricity), energy distribution, and end-user consumption (referred as total energy consumption). As a result, it is more justified to utilize PEC rather than total energy consumption because total energy consumption only includes end-user usage overlooking the losses during distribution.
In conclusion, it is noted that indicators that better reflect the state of the environment should be used (ecological footprint). The question arises why the authors focused only on CO2 emissions. What is important for the environment is the total emission greenhouse gases. This is emphasised in many studies, while IPCC publications show how emissions of other greenhouse gases can be converted into CO2 equivalents.
Response: Many thanks for your insightful comments. We are totally agreeing with you that other greenhouse gases can be converted into CO2 equivalents but ecological footprint is a more robust indicator according to the previous researches as it represents the ecological system with incorporating six sub sectors (such as cropland, grazing land, fishing grounds, built-up land, forest area, and carbon demand on land. Therefore, we suggest that future studies can use this indicator as a proxy for environmental sustainability. However, we used CO2 emission as a proxy for environmental degradation since our main purpose of this study was to assess the carbon neutrality target of India considering “Make in India” and “INDCs” pledge. Besides, following COP26, India remains on track to reduce emissions by 33 to 35% before 2030. India remains a major hub for industrialization, and the carbon neutrality; thus, we consider CO2 emission.
The state of the environment as a volume of GHG emissions. I don't know if this is the right term, or if climate impact would fit better.
Response: Many thanks for your kind feedback. We use this term following the previous literature on the energy and environmental economics domain. It might be better to use climate impact; in future study we will keep this in our mind.
However, the conclusions that were given in the summary seem to be extremely relevant, especially those related to EE.
Response: We are grateful to you for your valuable suggestions and comments. It will be motivated us for future research and contributions to science.
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
All revisions have been achieved.
