Evidence from the South African Energy Sector on the Impact of Gas Consumption and Technologies on the Environment

Legacy emissions from fossil fuel consumption signify the lasting impact of past carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions on present-day emissions. Given that the current emission levels are also high; it has become urgent to deal with this crisis. This study aims to examine the effects of gas consumption, legacy CO2 emissions, energy decoupling, and population on carbon dioxide emissions in South Africa using the modified IPAT identity and the Markov Switching Dynamic Regression analysis. Integrating additional variables into the modified IPAT identity uncovered evidence from the South African energy sector on the impact of gas consumption on the environment. The Markov Switching Dynamic Regression Model (MSDRM) utilised annual data from the South African energy sector from 1966 to 2020, collected from diverse sources. Results indicate that the Gas model’s probability (i.e., 0.8475) would persist in high-emissions states over time. The MSDRM results showed that gas consumption suggests a statistically significant negative relationship between gas consumption (-0.0461) and CO2 emissions, meaning that despite the decrease in CO2 emissions from using gas, it does not imply instant reversals in the ambient CO2 as to reduce the overall CO2, likely contributed from other CO2-emitting fuels. The MSDRM results showed that legacy CO2 emissions positively impact (I) current CO2 emissions and that decoupling (T) leads to increased CO2 emissions-the latter relationship indicating likely energy rebounding. These findings highlight the need to prioritise interventions and strategies targeting the factors with higher probabilities of contributing to sustained high emissions, which may involve implementing policies to transition away from high-emission sources while exploring alternatives and adopting cleaner energy sources. The results emphasise the challenge of decoupling economic growth from high CO2 emissions and underscore the importance of sustained efforts to address and mitigate climate change.