RESEARCH ARTICLE Does agricultural value-added induce environmental degradation? Evidence from Azerbaijan Ismail Bulent Gurbuz 1 & Elcin Nesirov 1 & Gulay Ozkan 1 Received: 1 October 2020 /Accepted: 23 December 2020 # The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE part of Springer Nature 2021 Abstract This study empirically analyzes the long-term relationship between agricultural production and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions in Azerbaijan using annual data covering the period of 1992–2014. Additionally, real income and energy consumption variables were included in the model in testing the existence of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis. Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) method is undertaken to reveal the existence of the long-term relationship between the CO 2 and its determinants. The ARDL mechanism shows that gross domestic product (GDP) and energy consumption have a positive and statistically significant effect on carbon dioxide emissions. However, agricultural production and the square of GDP have a negative impact on air pollution. Furthermore, when the coefficients of real GDP and squared GDP included in the model were examined to analyze the inverted-U-shaped relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution, the EKC hypothesis was confirmed to be valid. According to Toda-Yamamoto causality test results, there is a bidirectional relationship between GDP, the square of GDP, and carbon emissions. From energy consumption and agricultural value-added to CO 2 emissions, a unidirectional Granger causality relationship was found. Ultimately, the findings suggest that policies and reforms that increase or support agricultural production will help lower the country’s CO 2 emissions level. Keywords Climate change . Air pollution . Agriculture . Environmental Kuznets curve . ARDL . Causality . Azerbaijan Introduction Reducing the adverse effects of climate change is among the main issues in the development policies of countries. The destructive effects of economic growth on the environment have been one of the most talked about and discussed topics in almost every platform over the last decade. The industrialization has led to heavy consumption of fos- sil fuels such as oil, natural gas, and coal. The accelerated use of natural resources and the uncontrolled growth of the econ- omies have brought about an environmental problem (Gokmenoglu and Taspinar 2018). The rapid consumption of fossil fuels has led to an increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions density in the atmosphere. The significant increase in the amount of other GHGs, especially carbon di- oxide (CO 2 ) in the atmosphere, becomes a significant threat to the environment and human health (Javid and Sharif 2016; Yurtkuran and Terzi 2018). The environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis ex- plains the relationship between environmental pollution and economic growth. The EKC hypothesis is based on the thesis that there is an inverse-U-shaped relationship between the level of economic development and environmental pollution (Wagner et al. 2020). The EKC derives its name from Kuznets’ (1955) claim that there is a nonlinear relationship between income inequality and economic progress. Kuznets (1955) in his work, where he scrutinizes the way economic growth affects income inequality, expressed the relationship between income distribution inequality and per capita income with an inverted-U-shaped curve. Investigating the relation- ship between environmental indicators and per capita income, Grossman and Krueger (1991) showed that the relationship between per capita income and environmental degradation is similar to the relationship between income inequality and eco- nomic increase in the original Kuznets curve. Therefore, this relationship between economic growth and environmental Responsible Editor: Philippe Garrigues * Ismail Bulent Gurbuz bulent@uludag.edu.tr 1 Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agriculture, Bursa Uludag University, Gorukle, 16059 Nilufer, Bursa, Turkey Environmental Science and Pollution Research https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-12228-3