Citation: Jó´ zwik, B.; Gavryshkiv, A.-V.; Galewska, K. Do Urbanization and Energy Consumption Change the Role in Environmental Degradation in the European Union Countries? Energies 2022, 15, 6412. https://doi.org/10.3390/en15176412 Academic Editors: Junpeng Zhu and Xinlong Xu Received: 26 July 2022 Accepted: 30 August 2022 Published: 2 September 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). energies Article Do Urbanization and Energy Consumption Change the Role in Environmental Degradation in the European Union Countries? Bartosz Jó ´ zwik * , Antonina-Victoria Gavryshkiv and Kinga Galewska Department of International Economics, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Al. Raclawickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland * Correspondence: bjozwik@kul.pl Abstract: Nowadays, increased urbanization is visible in most European Union countries. At the same time, it can be noticed that in the studied period (2000–2018), GDP per capita increased, and CO 2 emissions per capita and energy consumption per capita decreased. These trends should be assessed in an unequivocally positive way. Considering these trends, especially with regard to economic development, our research goal is to answer the following questions: is there a long-run relationship between urbanization, energy consumption, economic growth, and carbon dioxide emissions, and what roles do urbanization and energy consumption play in the concept of the environmental Kuznets curve? This study aims to contribute to this growing area of research by exploring the European Union countries in the period covering the accession of new member states from Central Europe that needs intensifying European environmental policy. In order to test cointegration, we used Pedroni and Westerlund’s panel tests. To estimate the long-run coefficients, we employed the FMOLS, MG, CCEMG, and AMG tests. Our findings confirmed the long-run relationship between variables. We find that urbanization has a high negative impact on carbon dioxide emissions per capita. Interestingly, our studies’ results differ from those in most of the previously published articles about European countries. For this reason, our results provide a new insight for policymakers in European Union institutions. Keywords: environmental Kuznets curve; carbon dioxide emissions; CO 2 ; urbanization; energy consumption; European Union 1. Introduction Nowadays, over half of the world’s inhabitants live in cities. The United Nations’ prognoses point out that the total population in the world in 2050 will reach 9.31 billion, while the urban population will increase to 6.25 billion, and the urbanization index will be 67.2% [1]. It is largely the civilization advance, together with all the accompanying effects, which has made the population in cities grow dramatically. However, all these aspects and assumptions have consequences as far as the natural environment, the population growth, and the population distribution in particular areas of the globe, especially in cities, are concerned. In the European Union countries, urbanization is progressing continuously, extending into new regions. In the years 2000–2018, its increase was visible in most countries. The urbanization index dropped only in four countries: Slovak Republic, Austria, Cyprus, and Poland. Minor changes (less than 1%) in this respect occurred only in the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), the Czech Republic, and Belgium (Table A1 in Appendix A). Based on World Bank Statista data, in 2019, 75% of the population lived in cities and the suburbs of the European Union countries, while only 25% lived in rural areas. It is noteworthy that at the same time, a decrease in carbon dioxide emissions can be observed along with the process of growing urbanization. In most countries, a decreasing carbon dioxide emissions tendency is seen in com- paring the emissions in the years 2000 and 2018. For example, Luxembourg, the leader Energies 2022, 15, 6412. https://doi.org/10.3390/en15176412 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/energies