Climate change, the by-product of tourism and energy consumption through a sustainable economic growth: a non-linear ARDL analysis for Turkey

Using a non-linear autoregressive distributed lag time-series analysis, this paper investigates the causal relationship between climate change, the tourism sector, and energy consumption in Turkey. The trade-off between a country’s economic growth and the environmental degradation caused by tourism and the energy sector is critical in terms of scientifically addressing the issue and developing economic policies. As a result, climate change is used as the dependent variable and is represented by precipitation and temperature separately; the independent variables are tourist arrivals, energy consumption, and economic growth. Data is gathered by various institutions from 1995 to 2020. According to the test results, while positive and negative shocks contribute to the decrease in precipitation and temperature in renewable energy consumption (REC) in the long-run, they affect the increase in precipitation and temperature in non-renewable energy consumption (NREC). In the long-run relationship between tourism and temperature, a decrease in the number of tourist arrivals causes a decrease in temperature and precipitation. The findings reveal that a decrease in the number of tourist arrivals and an increase in REC may aid in decreasing temperature, while the increase in NREC may cause an increase in temperature. Through a case study of Turkey, decision-makers should consider these scientific findings that are in the frame of non-linear analysis as possible scenarios for mitigating climate change and fostering sustainable economic growth with efficient tourism policies for the world.