Background:

This paper assesses the sustainability of the Spanish economic devel-opment model for the period 1980-2010. Moreover, we carry out a comparative analysis with the biggest European economies: France, Germany, Italy and United Kingdom.

Methods:

In order to achieve the aim of this paper, cointegration techniques have been applied. Through these techniques, we have analyzed the long-term rela-tionship between consumption of renewable and non-renewable and economic development and pollution during the period 1980-2010. After a selection pro-cess, for Spain we have used to measure growth the GDP and the Gross Capital Formation; to measure development, the Index of Human Development and Social Capital; for pollution, the emissions of CO2 and consumption of renew-able energy in the electricity system and oil consumption for the consumption of renewable and non-renewable, respectively. Secondly, we have compared the results obtained for the Spanish economy with the four biggest economies in the European Union: Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom. Given the availability of data for these countries Gross Capital Formation and Human Development Index have been excluded from the analysis.

Results:

First, a positive impact of consumption of renewable and renewable energy on growth and development is found for the five countries under study, with a greater impact of non-renewable energy. For the three countries for which the data for CO2 emissions are available (Spain, France and the UK), it is ob-served that the reducing effect of renewable energy on CO2 emissions is less than the polluting effect of non-renewable energy. Second, for Spain, Germany and France, the data point out a feedback process between the consumption of non-renewable and growth and development, which is not observed with the consumption of renewable energy.

Conclusions:

In order to reconcile the objective of growth with the reduction of pollution, more moderate growth rates are required. The growth model of the countries analyzed stimulates consumption of non-renewable energy, but not renewable. This result points out the requirement of designing policies that encourage the substitution of non-renewable energy by renewable energy.