Towards mitigating ecological degradation in G-7 countries: accounting for economic effect dynamics, renewable energy consumption, and innovation.

The 21st century economic growth is characterized by extensive production and consumption, which increases anthropogenic emissions. However, reducing emission levels require ecological sustainability through innovation and modern technological consideration. This paper investigated not only renewable energy-driven environmental quality but also captured innovation research investment in renewables within the framework of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) model for G-7 countries. The findings confirmed the presence of EKC hypothesis for G-7 countries. In addition, renewable energy and innovation were identified to exert negative effects on ecological footprint. To capture the entire conditional distribution of the ecological footprint, we applied the Method of Moments Quantile Regression with fixed-effects. The results affirmed the negative effects of renewable energy innovation. Besides, their effects were heterogeneous across the quantiles with evidence of diminishing effects from lower to higher quantiles, suggesting that countries with lower levels of ecological footprint are possibly more prone to the environmental deterioration effect of income growth. The results of the causality test support economic growth-induced ecological degradation, growth-induced renewables, and innovation-induced ecological conservation. The results further showed a feedback effect between renewables and ecological footprint, innovation, and income growth as well as innovation and renewables. These findings portend important implications for the realization of carbon-free economies in G-7 countries by 2100.

Fiscal policy and CO2 emissions from heterogeneous fuel sources in Thailand: Evidence from multiple structural breaks cointegration test.

This study investigated the dynamic linkage between fiscal policy, energy and CO2 emissions from heterogeneous fossil fuel sources in the context of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) framework for Thailand. With annual data from 1972 to 2014 while incorporating structural breaks, the study employed a Maki cointegration test and the dynamic ordinary least squares estimation approach. The results found that a 1% increase in fiscal policy brought about a 6.5% (p < 0.05) increase in the low CO2 emitting gaseous fuel sources (natural gas), a 0.2% (p < 0.01) reduction in the intermediate CO2 emitting liquid fuel sources (crude oil derivatives), and an insignificant increase 0.2% (p > 0.05) in the high CO2 emitting solid fuel sources (coal derivatives). While a 1% increase in fiscal policy abates aggregated CO2 emissions by 0.2% (p < 0.05), the existence of the EKC hypothesis was validated in all models. The causality test revealed a bi-directional causal relationship between fiscal policy and CO2 emissions and unidirectional flow from fiscal policy to energy consumption. This confirms that fiscal policy initiatives towards energy consumption have long-run implications for environmental quality. Our findings support the energy-led growth hypothesis for the Thai economy. The implication of the finding is that increasing the share of clean and renewable energy sources should be encouraged-rather than energy conservation policies, which obstruct energy supply and utilization. This highlights a more efficient way of harnessing energy sources through the instrumentality of fiscal policy.

Testing the role of oil production in the environmental Kuznets curve of oil producing countries: New insights from Method of Moments Quantile Regression.

The global economic growth has triggered the continual increase in oil demand for transportation and petrochemical sectors which offshoots environmental pollution. Though there exists literature on environmental Kuznets curve, however, very few examine the scope in the light of fossil fuel energy production. This paper investigated the dynamic effect of oil production on carbon emissions in 15 oil-producing countries by accounting for the role of electricity production, economic growth, democracy, and trade over the period 1980-2010. Using the novel Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR) with fixed effects, the results found an inverted U-shape relationship between economic growth and CO2 emissions only at median and higher emission countries, thus, validating the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis. Oil production increases CO2 emissions significantly from the first to sixth quantiles with greater effect at the lowest quantile and weaker effect at the highest quantile. Electricity production was found to increase CO2 emissions while trade condenses CO2 emissions across all the quantiles thereby confirming the pollution halo hypothesis for oil-producing countries. The effect of democracy was positive across all the quantiles but only significant in countries with average CO2 emissions. The findings provide insight for policymakers to mitigate CO2 emissions in oil-producing countries through diversification and clean energy technologies such as carbon capture and storage.

Impact assessment of trade on environmental performance: accounting for the role of government integrity and economic development in 79 countries.

Trade has become a carrier for transporting both clean and dirty (pollution-intensive) goods, services and technologies between countries. While the impact of trade on economic development has been reported in the extant literature, insufficient and inconsistent results exist between pollution-embedded trade and environmental performance. Using the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Generalized method of moments and panel quantiles via Moments, this study explored the role of government integrity on trade-environment nexus in the post-Kyoto protocol era for 79 countries between 2008 and 2018. The empirical results suggest that per capita GDP and government integrity improve environmental performance whereas trade impedes it. In the quantile regression model, the effect of government integrity is significant at the median quantiles with a stronger effect in countries with higher environmental performance. The negative effect of trade is not only significant from the lower quantile through the median quantile but decreases in magnitude, tracking from countries with lower to higher environmental performance. While the positive effect of government integrity is significant from the median quantile onwards, the negative effect of trade is only significant in the lower quantile. Robustness analysis from the GMM dynamic panel estimation technique shows that interacting government integrity with trade yields a positive and significant coefficient. Meaning that improved government integrity averts the negative effect of trade on environmental performance. The study suggests that outsourcing the regulations of trade-oriented multinational companies operating in developing economies with weak institutions to global humanitarian organisations such as the United Nations would be the first step to reduce trade-attributable environmental degradation.

Environmental quality effects of income, energy prices and trade: The role of renewable energy consumption in G-7 countries.

Renewable energy plays a vital role in achieving environmental sustainability, however, the mitigating effect varies across countries depending on the share of renewables in the energy mix. Herein, we analyze the effect of renewable energy consumption, energy prices, and trade on emissions in G-7 countries. The results demonstrate that renewable energy and energy prices exert negative pressure on CO2 emissions while trade volume exerts a robust positive pressure on CO2 emissions. The country-specific estimation results provide evidence of a negative effect of energy prices on CO2 emissions. While the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis is validated at the panel and country-specific levels, the effect of renewable energy consumption and trade, are disparate across countries. The panel Granger causality shows a mono-directional causality flowing from energy prices, GDP, the quadratic term of GDP and trade to CO2 emissions. Renewable energy consumption, however, has no causal relationship with CO2 emissions but indirectly affects CO2 emissions through its direct effect on energy prices. Joint action on trade, energy prices, and country-specific renewable energy policies have implications for environmental sustainability and the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Agricultural production and CO2 emissions from two sources in the ECOWAS region: New insights from quantile regression and decomposition analysis.

Agriculture being the dominant economic activity of the West African economies is responsible for the most greenhouse gasses emitted in the region. Are there heterogeneous determinants of environmental degradation across low, intermediate, and high CO2 emitters in West Africa? Considering the significance of agriculture, industrial activities, renewable energy consumption and economic growth in West-Africa, this paper investigates the conditional determinants of environmental degradation from two sources (per-capita CO2 emission and CO2 emission from liquid sources) using panel data from 15 ECOWAS countries for the period 1990-2015. The study adopts a panel quantile regression technique with non-additive fixed effects as well as quintile decomposition techniques to explore if the relationship between agricultural and economic factors differs across low, intermediate, and high CO2 emitters and the extent of CO2 emission gap between Low Income Group (LIG) and Lower-Middle Income Groups (LmIG). Results from the mean estimators show that while agricultural production impedes CO2 emissions from liquid sources, it however increases total emissions implying a shift from mechanized farming to more traditional farming methods and the burning and use of biomass from agricultural produce as an energy source. Estimates of the conditional determinants of environmental degradation vary along the quantiles signifying heterogeneity of the determinants of environmental degradation across, low, intermediate, and high CO2 emitters. Additionally, results emanating from the quantile decomposition procedure show that lower-income West African economies have superseded their lower-middle income counterparts at higher quantiles of CO2 emissions.