Linking energy-based circularity with environment in high-income economies.

A circular economy is a regenerative approach that emphasizes resource efficiency, waste reduction, and the reuse of materials for a sustainable world. By adopting circular practices, we can reduce the negative impact of traditional linear economic models on the environment. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the world is generating only 26% of total energy production from circular practices, which positively impacts environmental health. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the empirical estimation of circular practices regarding energy on the environment. The current study focuses on the association between the circular economic index, economic growth, trade, digitization, energy use, and the financial development index on the environment in 29 high-income countries from 1990 to 2019. The study employs the second-generation econometric technique Driscoll-Kraay to empirically estimate the association among the variables of interest after confirming cross-sectional dependency within the data set. The study findings reveal that circular practices improve high-income countries' environmental conditions. Furthermore, the study confirms the association between economic growth, financial development index, energy use, trade, and digitization on the environment, and it leads to a more sustainable situation. Policies are drawn based on findings for policymakers toward a sustainable world.

Zig-zag technology adoption behavior among brick kiln owners in Pakistan.

This study uses the theory of planned behavior to examine the individual's intentions and zig-zag kiln technology adoption attitude in responding to carbon emissions in Pakistan. This study is based on cross-sectional data and a representative sample of 335 brick kilns owners from 11 districts of Punjab province of Pakistan is collected. Partial least squares structural equation modeling technique was used for the analysis. Results depicted that environmental concern and self-efficacy have a significant influence on attitude toward sustainable technology while subjective norms have a significant effect on intentions toward zig-zag kiln technology. A 1% increase in environmental concern and self-efficacy increases sustainable environmental technology by 24% and 58%, respectively. Furthermore, perceived behavioral control and intentions also significantly impact adoption attitude, and a 1% increase in perceived behavioral control and intentions increase the zig-zag kiln adoption attitude by 68% and 30%, respectively. Results depicted that adoption attitude is significantly determined by these explanatory variables. The study's findings provided new evidence for the government to place more emphasis on enhancing kiln owners' attitudes, social norms, and perceived behavioral control, which would lead towards the adoption of this new technique.

Efficacy of feed improvement in livestock farming to offset climate variations in Punjab, Pakistan: silage as an example.

Globally, climate change is an alarming threat to the livestock industry. Such changes in the climate can also adversely affect the returns of livestock farmers in Pakistan. Improvement in the production process could decrease the risk of losses. This study analyzes the efficacy of silage to abate the losses in livestock profitability resulting from the climate change. The study employed cross-sectional survey data of 492 livestock farmers collected from six districts of Punjab Province, Pakistan. The data are analyzed with endogenous switching regression, considering the possibility of selection bias and endogeneity in adopting silage as a climate change adaptation measure. The study findings show a significant difference in material well-being between silage users and conventional feed users. Furthermore, training programs such as silage training and livestock development programs could be meaningful provisions to abate climate change and improve food security. It is suggested that training and development programs should be incorporated in policy plans to improve the well-being of farmers in terms of their farm revenues.

Livelihood diversification in managing catastrophic risks: evidence from flood-disaster regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan.

Pakistan's agricultural productivity is considered to be low despite several agriculture promotion policies. Such policies concentrate primarily on on-farm development and overlook rich prospects for off-farm diversification. Livelihood diversification of small-scale farmers plays a major role in reducing hunger and mitigating the adverse impacts of climate change. Therefore, this paper seeks to analyze livelihood diversification in managing catastrophic risks among rural farm households of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan. We have interviewed a total of 600 farm households through a standardized questionnaire in two districts (Nowshera and Charsadda) of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan that were badly affected by the 2010 flood. For empirical analysis, a logistic regression model was chosen to analyze the important attributes that are correlated to livelihood diversification of the rural households in flood-susceptible areas of Pakistan. The survey findings indicate that 50% of the total sample respondents adopted off-farm livelihood diversification strategies, while 40.5% of farm households adopted on-farm livelihood diversification strategies in managing catastrophic risks. The logistic regression model results show that attributes including socioeconomic and demographic, institutional, and risk perception significantly influenced households' choices of livelihood diversification. Also, the findings indicated a wide range of livelihood diversification constrained including climatic risks and uncertainties (23%), inadequate natural resources (17%), limited level of skills and training (15%), lack of institutional support (12%), lack of credit facilities (11%), poor infrastructure including markets and roads (16%), and lack of labor availability (4%). The study urges the need for robust climate change adaptation policies, in particular, by aiming at training initiatives, improving access to services, and enhancing institutional assistance, and better infrastructure. The livelihood of small-scale farmers could only improve if the Government pays due consideration and adopts the right policy initiatives that promote the diversification of livelihoods as part of the creation of national jobs to save many lives and improve livelihoods.

Renewable energy, economic development, and ecological footprint nexus: fresh evidence of renewable energy environment Kuznets curve (RKC) from income groups.

This study aims to measure the association of real economic growth per capita, renewable energy consumption, and financial development with ecological footprints (EFP) across the 155 countries of four different income groups over the period of 1990-2017. For the analysis, the unit root tests allowing cross-sectional dependency, Westerlund cointegration test, common correlated effect of mean group, augmented mean group, mean group, and Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causality test are used. The results verify both the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) and renewable energy environment Kuznets curve (RKC) hypotheses in the high-income group; however, other groups have not shown reliable results. Moreover, it is observed that the existence of RKC is a turning point for high-income countries, and it takes place before the turning point of the forthcoming EKC. Besides, empirical outcomes endorse the presence of long-run equilibrium and indicate that financial development has a negative and significant effect on the EFP in the case of the high-income group. In contrast, upper-middle- and lower-middle-income groups show the insignificant relationship with the dependent variable. Likewise, financial development has a positive and significant association with EFP for the low-income group. Conversely, biomass energy has a negative relationship with EFP in high- and lower-middle-income groups, while a positive association has been observed for the remaining two groups. We suppose that the study outcomes would guide the policymakers in decision-making regarding the development and usage of renewable energy to prevent environmental damages.

Synergy between adaptations and resilience of livelihood from climate change vulnerability: A group-wise comparison of adapters and non-adapters.

The similarities, differences, and contradictions regarding climate change adaptation and resilience by academics and practitioners have already been documented. It is the need of time to set new precedence by observing the adaptations and resilience as tools to respond to the climate variations. This study analyzed the influence of climate change adaptations and synergy between resilience from livelihood vulnerability and adaptations. A field survey of 489 farming households is conducted with the help of a well-structured questionnaire from four districts of the south part of Punjab province of Pakistan. This study uses the Endogenous Switching Regression model for the sake of analysis. The outcomes of the study reveal that age, education, family size, total land, and seed price have significant linkage with the adoption of adaptations. The synergistic effects of adaptation and resilience are also visible here as the adaptations factors are significantly contributing towards yield, per capita income, poverty, and poverty gap of the respondents. This study suggests the provision of proper education and smart technology to help in enhancing the adaptive capacity of farmers. More imperatively, adaptations to climate variations can be concluded as a remedial tool for resilient livelihood. It is believed that the present study can be considered as a guide for future research on other regions of Pakistan and neighboring countries.

Measuring education sector resilience in the face of flood disasters in Pakistan: an index-based approach.

School resilience is characterized as risk management techniques to build a safe environment for students. Recognizing the need of building disaster resilience for the education sector, this study is aimed at assessing flood disaster resilience of elementary schools in four extremely vulnerable districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. This paper established the assessment tool by incorporating climate resilience indices and 16 tasks of the Hyogo Framework for action designed for the education sector. It discusses four dimensions: physical conditions of elementary schools, human resources, institutional issues, and external relationships, each with three parameters and five variables. The data were obtained for 60 variables from 20 randomly selected elementary schools. Indicators of resilience were identified, and an index-based approach was used to get the composite values of the four dimensions of resilience. Correlations between the dimensions, components, and indicators were also checked in the current study. Results show that schools in Nowshera, followed by Charsadda, Peshawar, and Dera Ismail Khan, are the most resilient to flood disasters. For all 12 parameters under 4 dimensions, the relative resilience of study districts is the same. The findings further indicated that there is a strong correlation between the pairs of human resources and institutional issues as well as institutional issues and external relationships that can also enhance human resources and external relationships. Furthermore, institutional issues are also correlated with external relationships and human resources, which indicate that there is a triangular relationship among human resources, institutional issues, and external relationships. The findings would encourage policymakers and practitioners to develop an effective plan to improve the resilience of schools using the overall resilience situation. In short, education sector disaster resilience can be achieved by integrated planning and implementation approach. In this respect, disaster managers, public and private education sectors, school staff, students, and parents need to establish synergies to devise a comprehensive plan of action to enhance disaster education.

Exploring the linkage among energy intensity, carbon emission and urbanization in Pakistan: fresh evidence from ecological modernization and environment transition theories.

This study uses ecological modernization and environmental transition theories to estimate the interaction among energy intensity, carbon emission and urbanization for the period of 1980-2017. We have systematically examined the empirical connections among emission, urbanization, income per capita, imports, exports, energy use, trade openness and energy intensity. The Johnson co-integration and Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) causality methods are employed for the sake of analysis. Overall findings confirm the dynamic and U-shaped relationship between emission and urbanization, and carbon emission and income per capita. The empirical results of urbanization, inflation and financial development illustrate positive association with the energy intensity, whereas trade openness, labour force participation and carbon emission show a negative association with the dependent variable. Moreover, outcomes of causality analysis provide evidence of varied causality link among the variables across the models. The study provides the implications for the decision makers in Pakistan to choose new urbanization patterns that are less reliant on energy consumption.

Revealing empirical association among ecological footprints, renewable energy consumption, real income, and financial development: a global perspective.

This study quantifies the effect of real income, financial development, trade openness, and renewable energy consumption on the ecological footprint (EFP) of consumption for a panel data of 152 economies during the period 1990-2017. Several panel unit root tests validate that datasets are stationary. The findings from the Westerlund co-integration test depict that variables are co-integrated. The augmented mean group panel algorithm method is then applied to measure the long-run linkage between variables. The analysis outcomes show a negative and significant association between the EFP and real income per capita in the case of the higher-income group while remaining groups depict the other way round relationship. Further, openness and renewable energy consumption are also observed to reduce EFP in the groups of higher-income and upper-middle-income economies. Finally, financial development is observed to lessen environmental degradation in the case of the higher-income group. Similarly, the results of the Granger causality test based on the Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel provided evidence of varied causality relationship among the variables in different income groups. In addition, we also surpassed an impulse response and variance decomposition analysis that permitted to forecast the impact of concerned variables on environmental degradation during the selected period. Finally, the findings from the empirical analysis suggest that per capita economic growth will have an increasing effect on the EFP for the concerned income group except for higher-income countries in the future.

Nexus between urbanization, emission, openness, and energy intensity: panel study across income groups.

Energy is a basic need for the fulfillment of human activities, and usage of energy causes a rise in the carbon emission levels. This paper examines the impact of trade openness, urbanization, imports and exports on carbon emission, and energy intensity for 192 countries from higher, upper-middle, lower-middle, and low-income groups. The data are taken from the year 1990 to 2017 and Generalized method of moments (GMM) is applied for the empirical analyses. Results showed that energy use has less impact on carbon emission in high-income and lower-middle-income economies as compared to the other three sub-panels. Likewise, as a whole, urbanization showed inverse association with emission, on the other hand, it showed positive association with energy intensity in the high-income group. Trade openness showed a positive and highly significant influence on emission as well as on energy intensity. Exports and imports exposed different relations with carbon emission and energy intensity. Outcomes of a Granger causality test yielded an indication of varied causality associations between the variables across the income-based sub-panels. The study suggested the need for improvement in technologies and facilities across the countries for the decline of carbon emission and the enhancement of energy intensity.