Does waste energy usage mitigate the CO₂ emissions? A time-frequency domain analysis

There exist many seminal studies in the literature searching the influences of total renewable usage (or usage of its some components) on CO₂ emissions. However, to the best of our knowledge, there does not exist a research work in the literature considering the co-movements between waste energy consumption and CO₂ emissions. This paper aims at observing the possible negative or positive impacts of waste energy consumption on environmental quality (in terms of CO₂) by monitoring the whole sample period and all subsample periods in the USA for the monthly period 1980:1–2018:12. This paper searches also the positive or negative lead-lag relations between waste and CO₂ emissions, if exist, by considering high frequency (1–3-year cycle) and low frequency (3–8-year cycle) of the same sample period and subsample periods. The findings obtained by this research in general might underline (a) the outcome indicating that waste energy usage has been effective in diminishing the carbon emissions after the second half of the 2010s in the USA and (b) the energy policy act(s) in the USA implemented which eventually resulted in lower CO₂ emissions in the USA especially after the second half of the 2000s. The paper suggests as well some policy proposals which might result in positive contribution of waste energy on environmental quality.