Does “energy policy risk” degrade forest areas?
Forest Policy and Economics, cilt.193, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, SSCI, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 193
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.1016/j.forpol.2026.103953
- Dergi Adı: Forest Policy and Economics
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, BIOSIS, Compendex, Environment Index, Public Affairs Index, Business Source Ultimate (EBSCO)
- Anahtar Kelimeler: Energy policy risk, Forest, Quantile regression
- Anadolu Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
This study examines, for the first time, the impact of “energy policy risk” on forest areas across 130 countries, treating it as a new independent variable. To this aim, we used quantile regression to examine how effects vary across the distribution of forest areas and across countries. Contrary to expectations, the quantile regression results indicate that lower energy policy risk is associated with a decline in forest area across nearly all quantiles, except at the 80th quantile. This result indicates that easier access to energy and balanced consumption (reflected in a low energy policy risk score) drive up energy demand and infrastructure expansion. This, in turn, increases fossil fuel and biomass use, thereby pressuring forests. This finding shows that mitigating energy policy risk can have unexpected adverse consequences for forest conservation. The underlying mechanism is as follows: reduced energy policy risk → increased energy consumption → greater forest loss. Thus, policymakers should improve energy access and consumption efficiency alongside forest conservation measures that account for the environmental impacts of energy investments.