Effect of Clean Biomass Energy Use on Carbon Dioxide Emissions in ASEAN Countries: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

There is growing effort by Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to increase renewable energy in their energy mix in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) associated with fossil fuel energy consumption. Biomass energy is one of the renewable energy sources that has the potential to help mitigate carbon dioxide emissions in the ASEAN region considering its abundance and the current rise in its consumption. This study aims to empirically investigate whether the growing consumption of biomass energy contributes to lowering CO2 emissions in the region. Therefore, this study investigates the impact of biomass energy use on CO2 emission in ASEAN region over the 1990–2020 period. To achieve this objective, panel fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) was employed and the estimated result revealed that biomass energy use marginally decreases CO2 emission in the region. This finding implies that increasing and improving supply of clean biomass energy in the region’s energy mix can help to mitigate CO2 emission by significant portion. Consequently, several policy recommendations were suggested, which include advancing the use of technology to increase and improve biomass energy supply to various sectors of the region’s economy to substitute significant portion of conventional fuel in productive activities.