A panel cointegration analysis of CO2 emissions, nuclear energy and income in major nuclear generating countries

•This study revisits the nuclear-energy-growth-CO2 emissions nexus.•A panel cointegration analysis is employed.•Nuclear energy has a beneficial effect on reducing CO2 emissions.•CO2 emissions decrease with economic growth.

A number of studies have examined the effect of nuclear energy on CO2 emissions, and a lot has been learned from these studies. Due to their weaknesses in modeling approaches and variable uses, however, properly constructed and comprehensive analyses are limited. The main objective of this study is thus to contribute to the debate over nuclear energy and the environment with an enhanced model and variables. For this, a panel cointegration analysis is applied to quantify the effects of nuclear energy, energy consumption and income on CO2 emissions in 12 major nuclear generating countries. The results show that nuclear energy tends to reduce CO2 emissions. It is also found that CO2 emissions tend to decrease monotonically with income growth, providing no evidence in support of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) for CO2 emissions.