How natural disasters affect carbon emissions: the global case

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has once again made the impacts of natural disasters a hot topic in academia. The environmental impacts of natural disasters, however, remain unsettled in the existing literature. This study aims to investigate the impact of natural disasters on CO(2) emissions. For this purpose, we employ a panel dataset covering 138 countries over the period 1990–2018 and two dynamic panel estimation methods. Then, considering the differences in CO(2) emissions across various countries, we run a panel quantile regression to examine the asymmetry in the nexus between natural disasters and CO(2) emissions. We also discuss the mediating effects of energy consumption between natural disasters and CO(2) emissions. After conducting a series of robustness checks, we confirm that our results are stable and convincing. The empirical results indicate that natural disasters significantly reduce CO(2) emissions. Nevertheless, the impact of natural disasters on CO(2) emissions is asymmetric across different quantiles of CO(2) emissions. Furthermore, the technology level serves as an important moderating factor between natural disasters and CO(2) emissions. The mediating effect results reveal that natural disasters not only directly reduce CO(2) emissions but also indirectly promote carbon reduction by restraining energy consumption. Finally, several policy implications are provided to reduce CO(2) emissions and the damage caused by natural disasters.