How do energy consumption, globalization, and income inequality affect environmental quality across growth regimes?

This paper investigates the impacts of renewable and nonrenewable energy consumption, income inequality, and globalization on the ecological footprints of 49 countries for the period of 1995-2018. Panel cointegration test reveals a long-run relationship between the variables. Long-run parameter estimates derived from AMG and CCEMG, increasing income and nonrenewable energy consumption, have a significant positive impact on the ecological footprint, while countries that consume more renewable energy have seen an improvement in the quality of the environment. Conversely, neither income inequality nor globalization has a significant effect on national EFs. Evidence from the estimation of the panel threshold error correction model, where GDP growth is used as the transition variable, indicates a significant threshold effect, which supports a nonlinear relationship among the variables by identifying two distinct growth regimes: lower and upper. For the estimation sample, the positive and significant parameter estimates for economic growth in both growth regimes do not support the EKC hypothesis. The results indicate that renewable and nonrenewable energy consumption has a larger impact on the EF in the upper than lower growth regime. The threshold estimates are in line with the linear long-run estimates that do not indicate that income inequality has a significant impact on ecological footprint. However, globalization appears to negatively affect environmental quality in the lower growth regime.

Foreign investments and load capacity factor in BRICS: the moderating role of environmental policy stringency.

This research examines whether environmental regulations have a moderating effect on the link between foreign direct investment and the environment, as well as the effect of foreign capital investments on environmental quality for BRICS nations. In this approach, using second-generation panel data methodologies for the period 1992-2020, the impacts of foreign direct investments, real national income, consumption of renewable energy, and environmental stringency index on the load capacity factor are explored in the base empirical model. In order to test if there is any evidence of a potential parabolic link between economic growth and environmental quality, the model also includes the square of real national income. In addition, in the robustness model, the moderating role of environmental policy on foreign investment and environmental quality is checked. Empirical results show a U-shaped association between environmental quality and economic development. The usage of renewable energy and the environmental stringency index is also shown to improve environmental quality, although foreign direct investments decrease it. Finally, it is determined that environmental regulations are effective in undoing the negative impacts of foreign capital investments on environmental quality, demonstrating the validity of their moderating function.

Examining the Effects of Renewable Energy and Economic Growth on Carbon Emission in Canada: Evidence from the Nonlinear ARDL Approaches.

Increasing industrial activities trigger the intense use of fossil fuels and increase the number of carbon emissions in the atmosphere. Countries with a high share in current carbon emissions need to expand their use of renewable energy sources. Canada is an important energy producer and consumer globally. In this regard, its decisions are important for the future development of global emissions. This study examines the asymmetric effects of economic growth, renewable energy, and non-renewable energy consumption on carbon emissions in Canada from 1965 to 2017. In the first stage of the analysis, unit root testing was performed for the variables. For this, Lee-Strazicich (2003), ADF and PP unit root tests were used. The nonlinear ARDL method was used to analyze the relationship between variables. and Measures: In order to analyze the relationship between the variables in the established model, renewable energy consumption (%), non-renewable energy consumption (%), and carbon emissions (per capita-Mt). In addition, the economic growth (constant price 2010- US$) parameter was added to the model as a control variable. The findings support that energy consumption, economic growth, and renewable energy have an asymmetric effect on carbon emissions in the long run. The positive shock in renewable energy reduces carbon emissions, and a unit increase in renewable energy reduces carbon emissions by 1.29%. Besides, the negative shock in economic growth greatly deteriorates the quality of the environment; that is, a 1% reduction in economic growth causes emissions to increase by 0.74% in the long run. On the other hand, positive shocks in energy consumption have a positive and significant effect on carbon emissions. A 1% increase in energy consumption causes 1.69% carbon emissions. There are important policy implications for Canada to eliminate carbon emissions, increase the share of renewable energy sources and achieve its economic growth targets. In addition, Canada needs to reduce its consumption of non-renewable energy (such as gasoline coal, diesel, and natural gas).

Is export quality a viable option for sustainable development paths of Asian countries?

This paper investigates the role of export quality in climate action goal of the sustainable development goals in emerging Asian countries. For this purpose, the empirical model that observes the impact of real GDP, energy use and export quality index on carbon emissions is constructed and is analyzed by ARDL bounds testing approach for the period from 1970 to 2014. We also include the square of real GDP as independent variable to observe the existence of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis which implies the parabolic relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation. The findings show that increase in export quality leads to a fall in CO2 emissions for China and India. In contrast, the effect of increasing export quality increases CO2 emissions in Thailand and the Philippines. Lastly, our asymmetric causality results show that the positive shocks of export quality causes positive shocks of CO2 emissions in Thailand and Indonesia. Furthermore, we found that positive export quality shocks cause negative CO2 emissions shocks in India while negative export quality shocks cause positive CO2 emissions shocks in China. We also confirm the inverted U-shaped EKC hypothesis in China and Thailand.

Technological innovation, financialization, and ecological footprint: evidence from BEM economies.

Despite the growing interest in researches on the impact of technological development on carbon emissions, the effect of technological innovation on the other indicators of environmental degradation is of little interest. In order to close this gap, the aim of this study is to determine the effects of technological innovation on both carbon emission and ecological footprint for big emerging markets (BEM) countries. In doing so, the environmental impacts of the financialization process are also explored, in line with the fact that these countries face constraints in financing technological developments. In this context, the effects of technological development, financialization, renewable energy consumption, and non-renewable energy consumption on environmental degradation are examined through the second-generation panel data methods for the period 1995-2016. The findings indicate that technological innovation is effective in reducing carbon emissions, but does not have a significant impact on the ecological footprint, namely a 1% increase in technological innovations reduces carbon emission by 0.082-0.088%. Moreover, it is found that financialization harms environmental quality for both indicators of the environment because a 1% increase in financialization increases carbon emissions by 0.203-0.222% and increases ecological footprint by 0.069-0.071%.