This paper examines the linkage between carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, total factor productivity (TFP) as a measure of income, and information and communication technologies (ICT) in Tunisia from 1975 to 2014. To empirically investigate this relationship, the autoregressive distributed delay (ARDL) with the break point method is specified and estimated. The results demonstrate the rejection of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis by obtaining a higher value of the long-term total factor productivity (TFP) coefficient compared the short term one. Moreover, the result indicates an insignificant impact of ICT on CO2 emissions as a measure of pollution. As a result, Tunisian policy makers should not only enhance their total factor productivity but also expand their information and communication technology.

Introduction

Sustainable development, initially introduced by the Brundtland commission report (1987),1 in preparing the Earth Summit Rio (1992), is defined as economic development that strives to meet the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability to meet future generation’s needs. Consequently, reducing climate change impacts and forecasting adequately global warming represent the most important issues of sustainable development and are two basic United-Nations millenary goals for development. It is, worldwide, commonly recognized for policy makers and academic researchers that global warming and climate change are, generally, caused by CO2 emissions and other pollution indicators such as SO2, SPM and nitrogen oxide. Therefore, investigating deeply the determinants of CO2 emissions is the only useful tool for an ideal and optimal climate change mitigation policy. From a theoretical point of view, scholars used the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) concept to explain the environmental-economic nexus. Grossman and Krueger (1991) are the first who used the EKC concept in estimating the relationship between CO2 emissions and economic growth. They demonstrated that income per capita may affect positively CO2 emissions in linear form but its quadratic form has a negative impact on CO2 emissions, and they validated EKC assumptions. Indeed, the economic growth expansion generates more pollutant environment before a threshold level of income; after that, an additional amelioration of economic growth helps to ameliorate the environmental quality.