Environmental taxes, energy consumption, and environmental quality: Theoretical survey with policy implications

Unlocking a greener future: The role of digital finance in enhancing green total factor energy efficiency

The development of digital finance provides new opportunities for improving energy efficiency and promoting green development. This paper calculates green total factor energy efficiency (GTFEE) using the super-efficiency SBM model and examines the impact of digital finance on GTFEE. Digital finance has a significant positive impact on GTFEE. Under a bank-dominated financial structure, the positive impact of digital finance on GTFEE is quite significant. In regions with intense banking competition, a large amount of green credit, and lower resource dependence, digital finance is conducive to enhancing GTFEE. Optimizing the allocation efficiency of production factors is an essential mechanism for digital finance to encourage improvements in GTFEE. Digital finance alleviates distortions in factor markets and enhances the matching of the marginal output and the price of capital, labor, and energy factors, thereby facilitating improvements in GTFEE. Further analysis indicates that digital finance has a significant, positive spatial spillover effect on GTFEE, enhancing GTFEE levels in both local and neighboring regions. This study enriches the research on the relationship between digital finance and energy efficiency and provides theoretical foundations and policy references for how digital finance can better serve the green transition of the economy.

Comparative study of environmental and monetary policies in an R&D-based growth model

ESG investment and financing is a response to global warming and toxic carbon emissions. This is because market and financial development is expected to contribute to de-carbonisation in relevant firms. However, the opposite might occur with carbon-intensive industries. An option is to introduce a carbon tax or an emissions cap but this varies across countries. The impact of environmental policies and the development of financial markets are thus relevant factors to analyse in the debate regarding the best pathways to reduce pollution. This impact is not conclusive in extant studies. In order to meet this gap and to devise effective solutions to this problem, the mechanisms behind them need to be empirically clarified. To achieve this research objective, this study analyses the impact of these factors on welfare through pollution and growth. It examines the respective regulatory regimes of environmental taxes and emission quotas, using an R&D-based growth model with a monetary component. This is to identify the relationship between pollution emissions and financial markets. Results reveal that increasing environmental taxes and reducing nominal interest rates does in fact lead to pollution reduction and economic growth, as well as an increase in the quantity of money and credit through deflation. Reducing emission allowances has a similar effect. However, under emission quotas, it is found that a reduction in the nominal interest rate affects neither pollution emissions nor economic growth, although it does affect the quantity of money and credit. This is because the Fisher effect disappears when the emission quota caps output. A U-shaped relationship between emission allowances and the amount of credit then arises. Under an emissions trading system, the relationship between pollution emissions and financial development can be a win-win relationship or a trade-off relationship. This depends on the emission quota and nominal interest rate. These results suggest that, in addition to environmental policy instruments, financial market development can contribute to decarbonisation if there is the right environmental financial policy. A mix of environmental and financial policies is thus important in linking financial market development to decarbonisation.

The role of ICT investment, digital financial inclusion, and environmental tax in promoting sustainable energy development in the MENA region: Evidences with Dynamic Common Correlated Effects (DCE) and instrumental variable-adjusted DCE

His research investigates the interplay among investment in Information and Communication Technology [ICT], digital financial inclusion, environmental tax policies, and their impact on the progression of sustainable energy development within the Middle East and North Africa [MENA] region. Recognizing the distinctive hurdles impeding sustainable energy advancement, effective policy formulation and implementation in MENA necessitate a comprehensive understanding of these variables. Employing a Dynamic Common Correlated Effects [DCE] model alongside an instrumental variable-adjusted DCE approach, this study explores the relationship between ICT investment, digital financial inclusion, environmental tax, and sustainable energy development. The DCE model facilitates the analysis of dynamic effects and potential correlations, while the instrumental variable-adjusted DCE model addresses issues pertaining to endogeneity. The results indicate that both ICT investment and the promotion of digital financial inclusion significantly and positively impact sustainable energy development in the MENA region. Additionally, the study underscores the importance of environmental tax implementation in fostering sustainable energy advancement, highlighting the critical role of environmental policy interventions. Based on these findings, governmental prioritization of ICT investment and initiatives for digital financial service integration is recommended to bolster sustainable energy growth in MENA. Furthermore, the adoption of efficient environmental tax measures is essential to incentivize sustainable energy practices and mitigate environmental degradation. These policy recommendations aim to create a conducive environment for sustainable energy progression in the MENA region, contributing to both economic prosperity and environmental conservation.

Asymmetric effect of environment tax and spending on CO2 emissions of European Union

This study investigates the effects of environmental tax and environmental spending on CO2 emissions of 27 countries of the European Union EU27 countries using annual time series data from 1995 to 2022. The study used linear and non-linear autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL and NARDL) to examine the relationship. Estimates claim that the variables have a symmetric and asymmetric long-term and short-term relationship. The negative impacts of environmental taxes on CO2 emissions prove that emissions are reduced when polluting activities are taxed. Fiscal policy instrument such as taxation changes the behaviour of the private sector in the EU27 nations by disincentivizing polluting activities. On the other hand, government investment in environmental protection has encouraged the private sector in the EU27 nations to embrace and invest in green technologies, decreasing CO2 emissions. The ECM term is negative and statistically significant at a 1 percent significance level for ARDL and NARDL models, implying a stable long-run relationship between variables. It demonstrates that short-run disequilibrium converges to long-run equilibrium at a speed of 9.2% (in the ARDL model) and 22.7% (in the NARDL model). The study also sheds fresh light on the effectiveness of environmental taxes vs. expenditure, where taxes serve as a counter-incentive policy for CO2 emissions, and spending is a positive policy intervention.

An environmental perspective of energy consumption, overpopulation, and human capital barriers in South Asia

Prior literature is substantive in highlighting the nexus between pollutant and socio-economic predictors; however, the role of human interaction has not been sufficiently explored. Thus, the present study examines the validity of the environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis in the presence of energy consumption, overpopulation, and human capital index in five South Asian countries. It employs fixed effects, random effects, and dynamic panel causality techniques with a set of panel data from 1972 to 2021. The baseline results validate the existence of the EKC hypothesis in the recipient panel. Nevertheless, the findings reveal that energy consumption and population density have positive effects, while human capital has negative impacts on CO2 emissions. Furthermore, the study observes that energy consumption and per capita GDP have a significant causal link with CO2 emissions, whereas CO2 emissions are evident to have causality with population density and human capital index. The results are robust and suggest that the consolidation of an effective regulatory framework and technological improvements are substantial measures to improve environmental quality in South Asia. Moreover, allocating sufficient resources to uplift contemporary educational and health status would be imperative to improving environmental quality as aspired to by the Paris Agreement.

Effect of green taxation on renewable energy technologies: an analysis of commonwealth and non-commonwealth countries in Sub-Saharan Africa

African nations encounter difficulties enforcing regulations and providing incentives for using renewable energy sources. However, several nations are making efforts to encourage renewable energy through financial and tax advantages. Therefore, a shift to renewable energy is essential for African nations to experience sustainable growth and lessen environmental deterioration. Similarly, the extant literature examining green taxes' influence on renewable energy technology has documented equivocal findings. Hence, there is a need for a more thorough investigation. This study, therefore, explores the influence of green taxation on renewable energy technologies of emerging countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. We employed data from a sample of 28 countries of 54 African countries spanning 21 years from 2001 to 2021, providing a panel of 588 country-year observations. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank Dataset provided all the study's data. A heterogeneous dynamic panel data modelling using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) has been adopted. The study found that green taxes might be used to mitigate the adverse effects of non-renewable energy activities on the environment in Africa. Considering the findings of the components of green taxes, it was recognised that an increase in energy-related tariffs would lead to a growth in Africa's use of renewable energy. It was further established that an increase in transport taxes increases the adoption of renewable energy technologies in Africa. A comparative analysis between the commonwealth and non-commonwealth countries showed that green taxes of commonwealth countries in Africa significantly contribute to the growth of renewable energy technologies compared to non-commonwealth countries in Africa. Primarily, the results of this study can be a valuable resource for African governments and policymakers as they develop policies and evaluate legislation about the usage of renewable energy sources and other green practices. Finally, the study can shed light on creating and using efficient tax laws that support renewable energy sources.

The effects of environmental taxes, renewable energy consumption and environmental technology on the ecological footprint: Evidence from advanced panel data analysis

The world faces various challenges in terms of environmental sustainability. An increasing world population, the rigidity of traditional production and consumption patterns, the complexity of economic activities, globalization, and harmful emissions intensify environmental pressures. In this context, the evaluation of various environmental policy instruments is important to alleviate environmental pressures and, thus, combat climate change. This study aims to investigate the impact of environmental taxes, renewable energy consumption, and environmental technology on the ecological footprint in OECD countries by using data from 1994 to 2018 and modern panel data techniques. The results of the AMG estimator indicate that environmental taxation and renewable energy consumption play a role in reducing the ecological footprint; however, results imply that environmental technology does not have a statistically significant effect on the ecological footprint. In addition, we applied DCCE and CS-ARDL estimators to obtain robustness results and observed that the findings remained valid. Therefore, the results of the study suggest that regulations to increase the effectiveness of environmental taxes, renewable energy consumption, and environmental technology should be promoted to ensure environmental sustainability.

Role of environmentally related technologies and revenue taxes in environmental degradation in OECD countries

The purpose of this study is to validate the impact of foreign direct investment inflows (FDI inflows), trade openness (TO), environmentally related technologies (ERTs), environmentally related tax revenues (ERTRs), and economic growth (EG) on carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions by employing a PMG (pooled mean group) estimator with a dataset of 36 OECD countries spanning from 1990 to 2020. Im-Pesaran-Shin, Fisher-type, and cross-sectional augmented Dicky-Fuller tests indicate that study variables are stationary at I (0) and I (I). Kao and Pedroni cointegration test results show that cointegration exists across regressors and regressands throughout the sample of OECD countries. The results of the Hausman test confirm that the PMG panel ARDL method can be employed. Empirical results of PMG demonstrate that ERTRs help to reduce CO₂ emissions, while FDI inflows, TO, ERTs, and EG are significant and positively related to environmental degradation. This study is an effort to fill the gap by exploring the role of ERTs and ERTRs in environmental degradation in selected OECD countries. The study findings support the relationship between CO₂ emissions, ERTs, and ERTRs. It has been determined that environmental technologies and revenue taxes are also drivers of environmental sustainability. The study provides policymakers with pertinent implications for promoting the development and adoption of green technologies. The findings suggest that imposing environmental taxes expedites the development of environmentally related technologies for reducing CO₂ emissions and promoting sustainable development in OECD countries, with potential applications in a wide range of countries, particularly as a basis for emerging countries to boost their energy transition timelines.

Does being stricter mean doing better? Different effects of environmental policy stringency on quality of life, green innovation, and international cooperation

Nowadays, when we are facing several strict regulations, the question arises - does higher strictness lead to the desired results? This study addresses the fact that less research attention has focused on the effects of environmental policy stringency (EPS) on perceived health expressing quality of life, and on green international cooperation. In addition, previous research has provided rather mixed results on the impact of EPS on green innovation. Therefore, we fill an interesting research gap and help better understand the relationship between market-based and non-market-based EPS, perceived health, green innovations, and green international cooperation in OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries. Using three complementary databases provided by OECD, Eurostat, and the World Bank and the classical linear regression model, we confirm hypotheses that strong market-based EPS and green international cooperation have positive effects on perceived health. Surprisingly, contrary to the findings of prior research, we do not confirm the positive effects of market-based and non-market-based EPS on green international cooperation. This study contributes to the literature on the Porter hypothesis, technological collaborations in green technological development, and environmental innovation theory. In addition, this study provides several practical implications for policymakers across OECD countries.

Re-examining the governance effect of China's environmental protection tax

China has long exercised environmental control through the imposition of sewage charges. The start of the environmental protection tax on January 1, 2018, means that China has entered a new phase of environmental control. Unlike many previous studies on the role of environmental taxes at the firm level, this paper examines whether environmental taxes affect pollution emissions by influencing the behavioral choices of micro-actors. This paper first reviews the Pyrrhic tax, the Porter hypothesis, and the "double dividend effect." We then construct provincial panel data for 30 provinces in China from 2012 to 2019 as a sample, use the environmental protection tax as a natural experiment to evaluate the policy of this environmental protection tax using propensity score matching and difference-in-differences model, investigate the intermediate transmission mechanism of the policy implementation, and then analyze the differences in policy effects between provinces with different levels of economic development. The increased tax burden in 2018 led to a general reduction in provincial pollution emissions in which technological innovation by various groups, including firms and universities, had a mediating role.

Heterogeneous effects of energy consumption structure on ecological footprint

Attention to environmental sustainability has increased among nations, especially after the Paris Agreement and COP26 of 2021. Considering that fossil fuel consumption is one of the main factors causing environmental degradation, altering the energy consumption patterns of nations toward clean energy can be a suitable solution. For this purpose, this study investigates the impact of energy consumption structure (ECS) on the ecological footprint from 1990 to 2017. This research includes three steps: First, the energy consumption structure is calculated using the Shannon-Wiener index. Second, from 64 countries with middle- and high-income levels, the club convergence method is used to identify countries with similar patterns in an ecological footprint over time. Third, using the method of moments quantile regression (MM-QR), we examined the effects of ECS in different quantiles. The results of club convergence show that the two groups of countries with 23 and 29 members have similar behavior over time. The results of the MM-QR model show that for club 1, the energy consumption structure in quantiles of 10th, 25th, and 50th has positive effects on the ecological footprint, while in 75th and 90th are negative. The results of club 2 indicate that the energy consumption structure has positive effects on the ecological footprint in quantiles 10th and 25th, but negative effects on 75th. Also, the results show that GDP, energy consumption, and population in both clubs have positive effects, and trade openness has negative effects on ecological footprint. Considering that the results indicate that changing the structure of energy consumption from fossil fuels to clean energies improves the environmental quality, so governments should use incentive policies and support packages for the development of clean energy and reduce the costs of installing renewable energy.

Energy security: the role of shale technology

Sustainable energy systems are sensitive to the countries' energy portfolio decisions, shaping geopolitics and contributing to the global energy security (ES). Accordingly, this paper applies the "Markov regime-switching" method to explore the impact of "the North American shale technology" (NAST) on behavioral regimes of the US energy security measurements (ESM), e.g., diversity of primary energy demand ([Formula: see text]), net energy import dependence ([Formula: see text]), non-fossil fuel resource portfolio ([Formula: see text]), and crude oil import dependency ([Formula: see text]). The findings confirm time-varying and asymmetric behavior of the US ESM before and after the NAST. Specifically, the overall interaction of substitution effect and scale effect of NAST strengthens the US energy systems through [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text], while [Formula: see text] leads to higher risks of the US energy supply security. Consequently, the shale reserves development, diversification of primary energy demand and import supply, and advanced energy transport and trading policies, are suggested to overcome the barriers in achieving (i) availability, (ii) accessibility, (iii) affordability, and (iv) acceptability aspects of ES and vulnerability reduction of the US energy systems in respect of risk and resilience.

Can environmental taxes and green-energy offer carbon-free E7 economies? An empirical analysis in the framework of COP-26

The main cause of environmental degradation is carbon emissions, which puts environmental sustainability in jeopardy. This ecological worry, the obligation for which falls on all economic actors, has not gone undetected, and so in 2021, the Glasgow Climate Pact (COP: 26) was organized, with the primary aim of decreasing global carbon emissions. Because the Post-Glasgow Agreement goals represent a significant challenge to achieving ecological responsibility, pressure is applied to the participating nations. However, earlier literature lacked sufficient investigation of factors useful for the mitigation of carbon emissions in E7 (China, Turkey, India, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, and Mexico) economies. Hence, we aim to fill this research vacuum by predicting the impact of clean fuels and cooking technology availability, renewable energy, and environmental taxes on E7 economies' carbon emissions from 2000 to 2020, while taking urbanization and population expansion into account. Evaluation is done using four different cross-sectional dependence (CSD) methods, as well as unit root tests (CIPS and CADF), cointegration analysis (Westerlund and Kao), and the Driscoll-Kraay and quantile-on-quantile long-run factor estimate methods. The long-run analysis revealed from our findings that environmental tax, renewable energy, and access to clean fuels and technologies for cooking decrease carbon emission for the E7 economies. On the other hand, urbanization and population growth enhance emissions for the E7 economies. Finally, our results hold up under a variety of policy interpretations that would aid in reducing carbon emissions and their negative effects on the environment.

Effect of environmental taxes on environmental innovation and carbon intensity in China: an empirical investigation

Environmental taxes are deemed to be an important carbon mitigating factor and also encourage the producers to adopt environmentally friendly technologies. Therefore, the main objective of the analysis is to evaluate the environmental taxes on environmental innovations and carbon intensity in China. The novel quantile autoregressive distributed lag (QARDL) is applied to investigate the model empirically. From the results, we confer that the short and long run estimated coefficients of environmental taxes are positive and significant at most quantiles in the environmental innovation model, implying that the higher the rate of environmental taxes, the higher the rate of environment-related innovations. However, the estimates of environmental taxes are significant and negative in both short and long run at more than half quantiles in the carbon emissions model, suggesting the positive role of environmental taxes in reducing carbon emissions. In general, our findings imply that an increase in environment-related taxes helps reduce carbon intensity and promote environmental innovation in China. The study suggests that policymakers in China should promote environmental innovation and expand the environmental tax base to achieve the objective of carbon neutrality.

Does the greening of the tax system promote the green transformation of China's heavily polluting enterprises?

Climate change and pollution are the major environmental problems facing the world today. The emission of industrial pollution is not only related to the development of low carbon and green economy but also affects the ecological environment and climate change of human beings. The greening of the tax system is an important reform to help China's green development. From the perspective of internal green innovation and external legal pressure of heavily polluting enterprises, this paper discusses the impact mechanism of implementing the greening of the tax system on the green transformation of heavily polluting enterprises in China and uses DID model to conduct a quasi-natural experiment on the green transformation of heavily polluting enterprises in China. This paper finds that the implementation of the greening of the tax system has a significant impact on the green transformation of China's heavily polluting enterprises; the greening of the tax system policy realizes the "win-win" situation of green environmental governance and the development of heavily polluting enterprises through green technology innovation and forces heavily polluting enterprises in China to conduct environmental protection through the environmental legitimacy pressure. The effect of the greening of the tax system policy has obvious heterogeneity: The greening of the tax system has a more obvious improvement effect on heavily polluting enterprises with low and high market concentration. Compared with state-owned holding enterprises, non-state-owned holding enterprises are more significantly affected by the greening of the tax system. The positive impact of the greening of the tax system on the green transformation of heavily polluting enterprises is mainly reflected in enterprises with low financing costs, while it is not significant in enterprises with high financing costs. This paper enriches the research on the effect of green tax policy, explores solutions based on quasi-nature, and provides policy references for the green transformation of heavily polluting enterprises.

The spatial impact of digital economy on energy intensity in China in the context of double carbon to achieve the sustainable development goals

Using the provincial panel data of China during 2012-2019, the present study employed spatial Durbin error model to explore the spatial effect of the digital economy on energy intensity. The results show that both digital economy and energy intensity have spatial autocorrelation, showing the distribution characteristics of spatial aggregation. The digital economy has a significant negative influence on energy intensity. The result shows a significant spatial spillover effect of digital economy on energy intensity, and the development of the digital economy in neighboring regions reduces energy intensity in the central region. Additionally, industrial structure, urbanization, energy price, and foreign direct investment have a heterogenous impact on energy intensity. Thus, it is crucial to give importance to the development of the energy intensity, plan the spatial layout of the digital industry as a whole, drive the coordinated growth of the regional digital economy, quicken the upgrading of industrial structure, promote urbanization, perfect the energy price formation mechanism, raise the entry threshold for foreign direct investment, to effectively reduce the energy intensity, and facilitate the smooth realization of the "double carbon" goal.

The effect of mineral saving and energy on the ecological footprint in an emerging market: evidence from novel Fourier based approaches

Environmental degradation has been one of the hot topics discussed since the 1980s. In the literature, CO₂ emissions are generally used to represent environmental degradation. However, in this study, environmental degradation is examined in the context of ecological footprint. The study aims to investigate the effect of economic growth, energy consumption, and mineral saving on the ecological footprint in Turkey for the period of 1975-2017. For this purpose, the bootstrap autoregressive distributed lag model with a Fourier function (FARDL) method is utilized to test the long-term relationship between the variables. The findings indicate a long-term relationship between the variables. In addition, long-run estimation results based on the FARDL model show that economic growth and mineral saving increase the ecological footprint in Turkey. The conclusion discusses these findings and presents long-term policy recommendations for Turkey.

Does geothermal energy and natural resources affect environmental sustainability? Evidence in the lens of sustainable development

Climate change and global warming have been driven by a rise in carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations in recent decades, posing a danger to environmental sustainability. Thus, this research scrutinizes the effects of two types of energy (coal and geothermal) and natural resources on CO₂ emissions in 10 newly industrialized countries (NICs). The study also considers the role of financial globalization using a data between 1990 and 2019. This research applied a fresh nonparametric econometric technique termed "method of moments quantile regression (MMQR)." This approach is resistant to outliers and produces an asymmetric connection between variables. Furthermore, the long-run estimators (AMG and CCEMG) are employed as a robustness check. The findings reveal that natural resources, coal, and economic growth contribute to the degradation of the environment in the NICs in all quantiles (0.1-0.90). However, geothermal energy aids in enhancing environmental sustainability at all quantile distributions (0.1-0.90). Our findings are robust with alternative methods (AMG and CCEMG). The research's outcomes have the potential to help NICs nations design policies. Finally, based on the research results, a policy framework is proposed to solve the objectives of SDGs 7 and 13.

The effect of carbon tax incidence on household energy demand and welfare in the U.S

This study develops a model based on a general equilibrium framework to assess the excess burden of carbon taxes imposed on energy commodities (electricity and natural gas) among residential sector. The model takes into account labor market distortions from the tax and cross-price effects among energy commodities. Using data from the U.S. Residential Energy Consumption Survey, the own-price and cross-price elasticities of energy commodities are estimated. A substitution effect is found between electricity and natural gas, and omitting this effect would overestimate the excess burden of the carbon tax. The results show that the carbon tax behaves differently in affecting the excess burden for low-, middle-, and high-income households. The excess burden is lower for high-income households than for low-income households at lower pre-determined labor tax rates, but the effect is reversed at higher pre-determined labor tax rates. In addition, the empirical results show that the excess burden is different across the nine U.S. regions, while minor gas price changes have no significant effect on the excess burden.

Study on the Impact of Environmental Tax on Industrial Green Transformation

Tax revenue is one of the essential means through which the government controls the macro-economy and plays a vital role in promoting environmental protection and sustainable development. This study takes Chinese panel data from 2004 to 2020 as sample observations, uses the SBM-GML index method to measure industrial green total factor productivity, and then uses econometric methods such as the two-way fixed effects model and instrumental variable method to analyze the impact of an environmental tax on industrial green transformation. It is found that the generalized environmental tax represented by vehicle and vessel tax, resource tax, and urban land use tax has a significant positive effect on industrial green transformation. After a series of robustness tests and the exclusion of endogeneity, this conclusion remains valid. The research shows that credit governance, the agglomeration of producer service, and their co-agglomeration with manufacturing are important adjustment mechanisms. Among them, credit management is special and compulsory, greatly restricting the environmental pollution behavior of industrial enterprises, and encourages enterprises to make green investments and to actively improve production processes.

Does environmental sustainability affect the renewable energy consumption? Nexus among trade openness, CO2 emissions, income inequality, renewable energy, and economic growth in OECD countries

This study investigates the impact of carbon emissions, real oil prices, income inequality, economic growth, and trade openness on renewable energy consumption (REC) in twenty-three (23) OECD economies. The study employs the Westerlund panel cointegration technique to verify the existence of long-run equilibrium and the Augmented Mean Group (AMG) estimator to assess the long-run relationship between the variables, which allows for slope heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependency. Moreover, the panel causality test of Dumitrescu and Hurlin (DH) is utilized to gauge the causal relationship between the variables. The findings of our study reveal that REC is positively related to economic growth, real oil prices, income inequality, and trade openness, but negatively related to CO₂ emissions in OECD countries. In addition, there is one-way causality from GDP per capita to renewable energy consumption and a bidirectional causality between income inequality and REC. Furthermore, the results indicate that OECD policymakers and governments should regard foreign trade as a "clean energy fostering mechanism" while developing energy demand policies that are environmentally friendly.

The criticality of financial risk to environment sustainability in top carbon emitting countries

This research examines the linkage between financial risk and carbon emissions using a quarterly dataset spanning from 1991 to 2019 for top carbon emitting countries. To achieve the study objective, this study apply quantile-on-quantile regression (QQR), the quantile regression (QR) approach for robustness check, and the nonparametric predictive test that identifies causality in mean and variance. Empirical findings from the QQR technique disclose the following: (i) financial risk decreases carbon emissions in the USA, Russia, Germany, and Canada; (ii) in China, India, Japan, Brazil, and Indonesia, financial risk enhances carbon emissions (iii) while we find mixed reactions in the case of South Korea. The outcomes of the conventional quantile regression also confirm the QQR outcomes, while that of nonparametric causality discloses evidence of causality in majority of quantiles from financial risk to carbon emissions. Based on these empirical outcomes, policymakers in the financial risk-induced-environmental degradation regions should consider implementing policies or reforms that would keep financial systems sound, in order to prevent shocks to the environment, and its attendant multiplier impact on the environmental sustainability targets implemented to protect both the immediate and the future generations.

Revealing the effectiveness of environmental policy stringency and environmental law on environmental performance: does asymmetry matter?

Environmental stringency policy shocks and environmental tax have become fundamental policy tools for mitigating the degradation of the environment. The study explores the effects of environmental tax and environmental stringency policy shocks in the reduction of pollution emissions in China for the time 1993 to 2019. This study is a pioneer in assessing the simultaneous impact of these two policy instruments on pollution emissions in China. For empirical investigation, the study employed NARDL estimation techniques. The NARDL results show that positive shocks in environmental tax reduce N2O emissions by 0.03%, PM2.5 emissions by 0.13%, CO₂ emissions by 0.18%, and GHGs emissions by 0.01%, however, negative shocks in environmental tax increase N₂O emissions by 0.01%, PM2.5 emissions by 0.07%, CO₂ emissions by 0.28%, GHGs emissions by 0.17% in the long run. The long-run results also show that positive shocks in environmental policy stringency reduced CO₂ emissions by 0.94%, GHGs emissions by 0.77%, while negative shocks in environmental policy stringency increased N₂O emissions by 0.17%, PM2.5 emissions by 0.50%, CO₂ emissions by 0.63%. The findings suggest vigorous policy implications.

Clean energy consumption and CO2 emissions: does China reduce some pollution burdens through environmental regulation?

Environmental regulations are considered a prerequisite for environmental performance. However, very limited studies have explored the asymmetric relationship between clean energy consumption, environmental regulation, and CO₂ emissions. This study scrutinizes the asymmetry phenomenon in environmental regulation-clean energy consumption and environmental quality nexus in China by using the time series nonlinear ARDL approach by covering the period 1993-2019. The result reveals that the impact of environmental regulation on clean energy consumption and CO₂ emissions is asymmetric. A positive change in environmental regulation has a positive effect on clean energy consumption but a negative impact on CO₂ emissions in the long run. While a negative change in environmental regulation has insignificant effects on clean energy consumption and CO₂ emissions in the long run. The study suggests that China should need to revisit environmental regulation policies that could help in improving environmental quality.

Does knowledge matter for the environment? Global evidence of economic complexity and ecological footprints

This study endeavors to explore the impact of knowledge materialized in production on the environment by examining the influences of economic complexity on ecological footprints. The empirical analysis is carried out for a global sample of 95 economies comprising 30 low- and lower-middle-income economies, 27 upper-middle-income economies, and 38 high-income economies. The robust results from several panel estimates show two interesting findings. First, the economic complexity has an inverted U-shaped relationship with the ecological footprints of production and consumption in the full sample. Second, that relationship is confirmed in lower-middle-income, but not in upper-middle-income economies. Moreover, the inverted U shape is evidenced by the Consumption Ecological Footprint in high-income economies. The results imply the existence of an Economic complexity Ecological Kuznets Curve in the relationship between economic complexity and ecological footprints.

Analytical method to derive environmental policy effects in an endogenous growth model with leisure

There is deep-rooted opposition to strict environmental regulations, stating that they will lead to job losses and production contraction. Identifying environmental policies compatible with economic growth and pollution reduction is necessary to promote sustainable development. Using an R&D-based model with an endogenous labor supply, we examine the positive effect of an environmental policy on economic growth and welfare, where the policy reduces pollution emissions. The results show a substitution effect, where a reduction in pollution permit levels causes households to substitute labor for leisure and move their labor from production to R&D activities. This policy increased consumption. Thus, reducing pollution permit levels increases the growth rate and welfare via the substitution effect. This methodology can be applied to facilitate the complete analysis of environmental policy effects in an R&D-based growth model. Additionally, applying this analytical approach to other endogenous growth models and simulation analyzes can reveal the mechanisms of various environmental policy effects. In summary, this method facilitates the following steps:•

Analysis of growth and welfare effects of environmental policies.

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Understanding the process of deriving these effects in a basic R&D-based growth model.

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A framework that can be applied to the simulation analysis of these effects was provided.

Ecocentric Living: A Way Forward Towards Zero Carbon: A Conversation about Indigenous Law and Leadership Based on Custodianship and Praxis

This paper reflects on leadership shown in Venda, Southern Africa to protect the lungs of the planet and draws out key themes on the way Indigenous wisdom — underpinned by a sense of the sacred and the profane – expressed in solidarity with nature - are vital for protecting forests. It explores indigenous wisdom on their kinship with organic and inorganic sacred totems (plants, animals and features of the landscape) which are protected through relationships that inform governance. The ongoing community of practice and related projects make a case for standing together to address climate change. The paper was developed as part of a University of South Africa project together with the named authors. Mphatheleni Makaulule has developed an a priori and a posteriori approach to Ecosystemic governance that resonates with the work of Wangari Maathai. Makaulule’s leadership in Venda that is discussed with fellow project members who are exploring how the agendas for COP 26 could be attained by fostering law informed by Bateson’s concept an “ecology of mind – which means an understanding of human beings’ place within living systems and our need for both education and laws to protect ecosystems such as forests (which are the lungs of the world) and the water systems (which are the life blood of all living systems). The governance approach in Venda emphasised the need to think in terms of our relationships with all living systems. The idea of extending a sense of solidarity to others is explored deeply with Makaulule and colleagues by considering similar approaches in other places, such as the Amazon where Makaulule spent time learning from shamanic leaders, Ghana (where Akwasi Achemfuor has undertaken research), Northern Territory and South Australia (where McIntyre was mentored by Peter Turner and Olive Veverbrants). The paper also refers to the work of Widianingsih based on an in-depth discussion on the Kasepuhan Ciptagelar community in West Java that has also been protecting the forests for more than 300 years. The authors explore whether attributing personhood to nature, could be regarded as limiting a notion of mystical and pragmatic recognition of interbeing or even a form of colonising the notion of interbeing? We suggest that a community of practice approach (Wenger, 1999, Wenger et al., 2009) to support learning organisations and communities could support two-way education to enable cross cultural, cross disciplinary and transnational learning to support steps towards wellbeing through sharing our understanding of interbeing in dialogue, it became clear that transcendence through totemism, dreams and shamanistic rituals support a sense of oneness with nature, relationality as well as a sense of awe, solidarity and responsibility for others which is being increasingly recognised in the arts and sciences.

Do transport taxes reduce air pollution in the top 10 countries with the highest transport tax revenues? A country-specific panel data analysis

Recently, policymakers have been developing some policies to improve environmental quality. Environmental taxes are the most important of these policies. This study examines the effects of transport taxes, economic growth, and fossil fuel energy consumption on air pollution within the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis framework. The study used data from 1994 to 2019 for the ten countries with the highest transport tax revenues. According to the results, while the EKC hypothesis is valid for Portugal and Switzerland, it is not valid for all other countries. Moreover, fossil fuel energy consumption seems to increase air pollution in all countries except the Netherlands and Switzerland. However, transport taxes increase air pollution in Brazil. Therefore, transport taxes are not effective in reducing air pollution. In this context, it was concluded that the structure of transport taxes should be improved or reformed. In addition, it has been underlined that those national decisions alone will not be sufficient to improve transport taxes or environmental taxes. Therefore, regulations to be made with international coordination will be more successful in combating environmental problems by preventing tax competition and increasing tax harmonization.

Can the Leading Officials' Accountability Audit of Natural Resources policy stimulate Chinese heavy-polluting enterprises' green behavior?

Under the pressure of environmental crisis caused by production and economic development, a policy for Leading Officials' Accountability Audit of Natural Resources (LOAANR) was issued in 2014 to reduce the environmental risks and gain high-quality economy. Taking LOAANR policy as the research object, and based on 2011 to 2018 panel data from Chinese heavy-polluting enterprises, this paper employed a two-way fixed difference-in-differences (DID) model to explore the relationship between the LOAANR, environmental costs (ECs) and green innovation (GI). It was found that the implementation of the LOAANR significantly promoted enterprise GI, with the regulating impact mechanism, EC. GI efficiency was measured by continuous DID method. A heterogeneity analysis revealed that non-state-owned enterprises (NSOEs) were more eager to environmentally innovate. A corporate life cycle heterogeneity analysis of the GI policy effect found that the policy effect was negative in the decline stages. Compared with the eastern Chinese enterprises, enterprises in other regions were found to be more prone to positively adopting GI to maximize benefits in the face of the LOAANR. The policy was observed to have inhibited GI in central Chinese enterprises. It was also demonstrated that the policy effect has time and regional dynamic effect. Common trend, placebo, PSM-DID tests, and another robustness regressions were applied to support the conclusions. All the findings are expected to provide basic theoretical guidance for more environmental policies and high-quality production.

The Impact of Environmental Taxes on the Level of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Poland and Sweden

The research presented in the article was aimed at verifying the effectiveness of environmental taxes in reducing the level of greenhouse gas emissions. For this purpose, data provided by Eurostat in the environmental taxes category were used. They were treated as explanatory variables. Data were entered into the ARMAX models built by the authors. The dependent variable was the emission of two greenhouse gases covered by the research, namely carbon dioxide and methane. The research was carried out in Poland, for which the results obtained for Sweden were used as the benchmark. The built models made it possible to verify the relationship between environmental taxes in the categories of energy, transport, pollution, resources, and the level of CO2 and CH4 emissions. The nature of the explanatory variable was also examined. Environmental taxes can fulfill a fiscal, incentive, and redistributive function. The conducted research shows that these taxes, in fact, fulfill mainly a fiscal function, while redistributive and incentive functions are insufficient. It was also observed that the direction and strength of the impact of taxes differ depending on the greenhouse gas.

The effects of environmental tax on Ecological Footprint and Carbon dioxide emissions: a nonlinear cointegration analysis on Turkey

This article presents a nonlinear analysis in Turkey on the effect of an environmental tax (ET) on the ecological footprint (EFP) and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. In the literature, most of the studies examining the effects of environmental taxes (ETs) on environmental degradation (ED) have used linear methods. The number of studies examining this relationship with nonlinear methods is few. However, there is no study examining the long-run effects of ETs on the EFP, which is one of the most important indicators of ED, using nonlinear analysis. This study contributes to the literature by investigating the long-run effects of ETs on EFP and CO₂ emissions in Turkey by nonlinear analysis. Therefore, the model consisting of annual data for the period 1994-2019 was estimated by Dufrénot et al. (2006) nonlinear cointegration test. According to the estimation results obtained, ETs do not have any long-run effects on EFP and CO₂ emissions. Accordingly, it can be concluded that ETs in Turkey do not affect preventing ED.

Exploring the Impact and Path of Environmental Protection Tax on Different Air Pollutant Emissions

Existing studies have examined the double dividend effect of environmental protection tax. However, less attention has been paid to the influencing factors and transmission paths of the pollution abatement effect of the environmental protection tax. Based on the panel data for 30 of China’s provinces from 2007 to 2019, this study discusses the environmental protection tax’s influencing factors and transmission paths on the emission scale and intensity of different air pollutants through the panel threshold regression model and mediating effect model. The results show that: (1) the environmental protection tax has a positive emission reduction effect on the emission scale or emission intensity of sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and nitrogen oxides (NO₂); (2) the abatement effect is stronger when per capita gross regional product is above the threshold value; (3) technological progress, economic growth, and industrial structure all have positive mediating effects. Therefore, the local environmental protection tax rate should be set with comprehensive consideration of regional economic development, industrial structure, and technological progress.

Validation of environmental Philips curve in Pakistan: a fresh insight through ARDL technique

The tremendous increase of greenhouse gases puts adverse effects on environmental degradation, unemployment, and economic growth. Against this backdrop, and implementing the more recent estimation approach, the present study investigates the validity of the novel environmental Phillips curve (i.e., inverse relationship between unemployment and environmental degradation) carried by Kashem and Rahman (2020). The unique contribution of this research is to examine the three environmental indicators (CO₂, CH₄, and ecological footprint) as a dependent variable with the same independent variables, i.e., unemployment rate, energy consumption, economic growth, foreign direct investment, and globalization, from 1975 to 2014 in Pakistan. The results validate a negative relationship of unemployment rate with CO₂, CH₄, and ecological footprint in the long run that proves the existence of environment Philips curve for Pakistan. However, a positive association is observed for energy consumption and CO₂, CH₄, and ecological footprint. The positive connection of energy consumption and environmental indicators determined that not only CO₂ emissions rather CH₄ and ecological footprint play an equal role in environmental degradation. Furthermore, in the long run foreign direct investment improves environmental sustainability for CO₂, and ecological footprint thus proved the pollution halo hypothesis for Pakistan. Probing the effects of globalization that badly pollutes environmental sustainability. Therefore, the policymakers should focus on innovations and technological improvements to contemplate both environmental degradation and unemployment. There is a need for sudden actions for energy consumption plans in Pakistan for the nation's health, economic growth, and environmental sustainability.

Do renewable energy and national patents impact the environmental sustainability of Tunisia?

This study is focused on analyzing the linkage between carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, renewable energy consumption (RE), foreign direct investment (FDI), national patents (NP), exports (X), imports (M), and gross domestic product (GDP) in Tunisia by using the time series data from 1980 to 2017. A unit root test and an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model were applied to avoid bias caused by data mismatch and autocorrelation of time series data. Elasticity long-run test shows that renewable energy consumption, exports, and gross domestic product have a positive impact on CO₂ emissions, while foreign direct investment acts negatively on CO₂ emissions. Depending on the error correction term test, there is a long-run causality: from CO₂ emissions, renewable energy, foreign direct investment, exports, and gross domestic product to home patent. Findings of the short-run causality show that there is a unidirectional causality running from exports to CO₂ emissions and from exports to gross domestic product. Our results also show that Tunisia should encourage foreign direct investment because it seems to be an important factor in the mitigation of CO₂ emissions.

The effect of fiscal decentralization, environmental regulation, and economic development on haze pollution: empirical evidence for 270 Chinese cities during 2007-2016

The current discourse addresses fiscal issues, financial decentralization, and environmental quality and significantly affects economic development and sustainability. This investigation aims to address the research gap in fiscal decentralization and haze pollution for innovation and sustainable growth. This study uses the annual data of 270 Chinese cities from 2007 to 2016 for comprehensive analysis and employs spatial regression methods. The key findings imply that haze pollution in neighbouring cities causes further ecological issues. While the environmental regulations of China tend to have negative impacts on pollution, fiscal decentralization was found to be a key contributor to environmental pollution in Chinese cities. Overall, the study supports the validity of the pollution refuge hypothesis in China. Lastly, the conclusions allow us to conclude that China might need micro-level reforms regarding fiscal decentralization, environmental tax laws, and encouragement of cleaner production technologies.

A comparative study of carbon tax and fuel tax based on panel spatial econometric model

The balance between economic development and environmental governance has always been the focus of attention, and this has become a key issue facing in China. In recent years, the means of improving the environment through taxation are common, and it is more in line with China's national conditions. Carbon tax and fuel tax are considered to be effective environmental supervision measures, and the implementation of this policy is bound to have a critical impact on the advance of economic level. However, the implementation effects of these two mechanisms may be different, and they may also have various effects on regional development. Therefore, based on the panel data of China's 29 provinces from 2008 to 2018, we adopt the spatial autocorrelation method to explore the relationship between the economic levels of various areas. Then, establishing the panel spatial econometric model of economic growth and carbon tax, economic growth and fuel tax respectively to compare the implementation effects of the two tax policies. It turns out that there is a positive correlation between the economic growth of 29 provinces in China. And whether choosing to levy carbon tax or fuel tax, they all have their own advantages and disadvantages. Finally, according to the results of empirical analysis results, some relevant policy suggestions are put forward.

COVID-19 restrictions and greenhouse gas savings in selected Islamic and MENA countries: An environmental input-output approach for climate policies

As addressed by many studies, greenhouse gas has a significant impact on the different aspects of life and more importantly on the whole environment. The excessive emission of green gas leads to climate change which is regarded as one of the most significant challenges of 21 century. Hence, in this regard, this paper has addressed the changing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 18 countries of the MENA region. For this purpose, ten different scenarios of this disease's future status and its restrictions were considered in an input-output modelling framework. The empirical results indicated that the emission of greenhouse gas is reduced under all scenarios. However, some countries experience more reduction due to the restriction because of COVID-19 like Syria, Iran, Yemen and Lebenon. Based on the ninth scenario, Iran and Syria have the highest reduction in emission of greenhouse gas by 13.1 and 13.8 per cent, and based on the tenth scenario, Lebenan and Syria will experience the highest reduction in emission by about 13.1 and 17.9 per cent. The results show that according to scenario 10 (explosive intensification of the pandemic without the wave subsiding over a while) and scenario 9 (the pandemic worsens step by step without subsiding over a while), Syria and Iran have the highest reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, respectively. According to scenario 1 (rapid and complete control of disease), Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait have the lowest reduction in GHG emissions. Besides, the study draws several fruitful implications regarding environmental concerns as sectoral analysis such as Hotels and Restaurants, Retail Trade, Fishing, Wholesale Trade, and Transport sectors. Moreover, policymakers should be alert that notwithstanding all limitations, Private Households and Public Administration develop their emissions during the pandemic since quarantine intensifies the supply of these services. Surprisingly, none of the policy restrictions have a significant impact on GHG emissions from Education, Health, and Other Services, Petroleum , Chemical, and Non-Metallic Mineral Products, Textiles and Wearing Apparel, and Re-export & Re-import, demonstrating the robust and established nature of these sectors' activities. To control the emissions of the quarantine-neutral sectors, long- and mid-term structural and environmental policies should be considered. The researchers are guided by the novel implications in terms of how various industries might reduce emissions in different ways.

Graphical abstract

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10668-021-02018-3.

Asymmetric effect of structural change and renewable energy consumption on carbon emissions: designing an SDG framework for Turkey

A plethora of studies have shown that structural change helps nations achieve socioeconomic growth. The influence of structural change on environmental quality, on the other hand, has yet to be thoroughly investigated. As a result, the current study assesses the asymmetric impact of structural change on CO₂ emissions while controlling for the effects of economic progress, renewable energy utilization, and nonrenewable energy in Turkey. To this end, this research used yearly data stretching from 1965 to 2019. The study applied several econometric approaches including nonlinear auto-regressive distributed lag (NARDL) and spectral causality to assess these associations. The outcomes from the NARDL reveal that variations in the regressors have a nonlinear influence on CO₂ in Turkey. Moreover, the transition in the economy's structure helps to boost ecological quality, while the findings also show that Turkey's current economic progress trajectory is unsustainable due to the country's reliance on fossil fuel-based energy consumption. The outcomes of the spectral causality test also show that structural change can predict CO₂ emissions in Turkey at different frequencies. Based on the study findings, the government should encourage investment in the service sector in order to maintain a suitable level of environmental sustainability.

Where is the gray side of green growth? Theoretical insights, policy directions, and evidence from a multidimensional approach

Addressing the geographical relocation of the pollution-intensive gray side of low-carbon green production, our study analyzes potential determinants of green and gray growth performance of industrialized/developed countries (IDCs) and industrializing/emerging economies (IEEs) over the 1996-2015 period. We define green growth by low-carbon output, while we link gray growth to comparative advantages of pollution havens. Green and gray growth models include such predictors as domestic income and foreign direct investment (FDI) together with composite indices for globalization, environmental policy stringency (EPS), industrialization, and control of corruption. Considering non-stationarity, cross-section dependency, endogeneity, and heterogeneity concerns, we employ bootstrap and residual-based cointegration analyses followed by long-run estimations using the Common Correlated Effects Mean Group (CCEMG) and Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) estimators and causality examination through Dumitrescu-Hurlin and Emirmahmutoglu-Kose tests. The key findings of the study are as follows: (i) income is positively associated with green growth for both IEEs and IDCs, whereas the income-gray growth nexus is negative for IEEs. (ii) Although inward FDI stocks are positively related to green and gray growth of IEEs and outward FDI stocks are negatively associated with green and gray growth of IDCs, these relationships are mediated by EPS. (iii) Globalization encourages both green and gray growth for IDCs. (iv) Even though EPS inhibits green growth and encourage gray growth in IEEs, these direct effects widely depend on the indirect effects of control of corruption. (v) IEEs' higher gray growth performance is substantially explained by their increased industrial competitiveness, whereas the link is negative for IDCs. (vi) Control of corruption fosters both green and gray growth in IEEs. Overall, "growing gray" does not necessarily mean "not growing green" and vice versa. Globally, the low-carbon benefits of greening countries may be counterbalanced by the environmental costs of graying economies. From a policy perspective, IEEs need to reinforce environmental policies by green efficiency, green industrialization, and anti-corruption plans to decouple economic growth from carbon dioxide emissions.

Impact of institutional quality on sustainable development: Evidence from developing countries

Efficient environmental resource management is a serious concern for sustainable development in developing countries. This study determines the impact of institutional quality on sustainable development, based on total factor productivity improvements through the environmental regulatory process by way of abatement policies using an augmented endogenous sustainable growth model. Based on panel data covering 66 developing countries from 1984 to 2019, the employed methods involve the fixed effects and the system generalized method of moments (GMM). The main results indicate that institutional quality has a positive impact on sustainable development. Institutional quality has a more positive role in sustainable development in lower middle-income countries than low-income countries. The overall results indicate that the disaggregated performance of institutional quality variables is higher in lower middle-income countries than low-income countries. Two main policy implications are implied by our analyses: legislative backing in the form of institutional enforcement is mandatory to design efficient and productive policy relevant to environmental resource management; and various institutional forms should be considered when designing environmental resource protection policy from an environmental governance point of view.

How Officials' Competitive Pressure Affects Sustainable Development Capacity From a Spatial Perspective: Empirical Evidence From China

The view of political achievements suggests that officials will prefer to implement measures that benefit their own development in order to seek promotions. In the past, GDP weighed heavily in officials' appraisals, leading them to develop the economy without regard to sustainability. Now that the central government has incorporated environmental indicators into the officials' appraisal system, will this lead officials to implement sustainable development strategies to the fullest extent? Are there spillover effects and regional heterogeneity in this role? This paper discusses these questions with the help of entropy method and a spatial Durbin model using data of 30 provincial-level regions in China from 2006 to 2016. The conclusions show that, firstly, the officials' competitive pressure is beneficial to enhance the sustainable development capacity of the province, but this effect is only effective in western China. Secondly, there is no spillover effect of officials' competitive pressure on sustainable development capacity; thirdly, foreign direct investment, the proportion of state-owned enterprises and environmental regulations have their own unique effects on sustainable development capacity, and there are spillover effects. Based on these findings, this paper proposes corresponding policy recommendations in terms of officials' appraisal system, talent training, foreign investment introduction, and state-owned enterprise reform.

A step toward reducing air pollution in top Asian economies: The role of green energy, eco-innovation, and environmental taxes

Environmental degradation is significantly studied both in the past and the current literature; however, steps towards reducing the environmental pollution in carbon emission and haze pollution like PM2.5 are not under rational attention. This study tries to cover this gap while considering the carbon emission and PM2.5 through observing the role of renewable energy, non-renewable energy, environmental taxes, and ecological innovation for the top Asian economies from 1990 to 2017. For analysis purposes, this research considers cross-sectional dependence analysis, unit root test with and without structural break (Pesaran, 2007), slope heterogeneity analysis, Westerlund and Edgerton (2008) panel cointegration analysis, Banerjee and Carrion-i-Silvestre (2017) cointegration analysis, long-short run CS-ARDL results, as well as AMG and CCEMG for robustness check. The empirical evidence in both the short- and long-run has confirmed the negative and significant effect of renewable energy sources, ecological innovation, and environmental taxes on carbon emissions and PM2.5. Whereas, non-renewable energy sources are causing environmental degradation in the targeted economies. Finally, various policy implications related to carbon emission and haze pollution like PM2.5 are also provided to control their harmful effect on the natural environment.

Asymmetric Impact of International Trade on Consumption-Based Carbon Emissions in MINT Nations

The association between carbon emissions and international trade has been examined thoroughly; however, consumption-based carbon emissions, which is adjusted for international trade, have not been studied extensively. Therefore, the present study assesses the asymmetric impact of trade (import and export) and economic growth in consumption-based carbon emissions (CCO2) using the MINT nations (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey) as a case study. We applied the Nonlinear ARDL to assess this connection using dataset between 1990 and 2018. The outcomes from the BDS test affirmed the use of nonlinear techniques. Furthermore, the NARDL bounds test confirmed long-run association between CCO2 and exports, imports and economic growth. The outcomes from the NARDL long and short-run estimates disclosed that positive (negative) shocks in imports increase (decrease) CCO2 emissions in all the MINT nations. Moreover, positive (negative) shocks in exports decrease (increase) CCO2 emissions in all the MINT nations. As expected, a positive shock in economic growth triggers CCO2 emissions while a negative shift does not have significant impact on CCO2 emissions in the MINT nations. Furthermore, we applied the Gradual shift causality test and the outcomes disclose that imports and economic growth can predict CCO2 emissions in the MINT nations. The study outcomes have significant policy recommendations for policymakers in the MINT nations.

The Influence of Variable CO2 Emission Tax Rate on Flexible Chemical Process Synthesis

The emission of greenhouse gasses is a major environmental problem, and efforts are being made worldwide in various ways to encourage producers to reduce their emissions. There is a need to incorporate environmental measures into process design and synthesis, as pollution prevention is a higher priority than waste management, and in this way, more sustainable solutions can also be achieved. One possibility is to introduce a CO2 tax, the value of which is very uncertain in the future. This paper demonstrates how the CO2 tax affects the optimal results of synthesizing chemical processes using mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP). It was found that the tax increase promotes the use of better-quality raw materials and more efficient process units. Energy consumption and emissions are reduced and economic performance deteriorates. A multi-period, two-stage stochastic approach with recourse is suitable to incorporate the uncertainty of the CO2 tax in the MINLP process synthesis and gives better results than a simpler deterministic approach. In the case of the heat exchanger network synthesis, the costs obtained with the stochastic approach were 5% lower, and the emissions 7% lower than with a deterministic approach.

The nexus between environmental regulations, economic growth, and environmental sustainability: linking environmental patents to ecological footprint reduction in South Asia

Environmental sustainability has become a major concern for policymakers across the globe. In this regard, understanding the factors responsible for environmental degradation is particularly important for developing nations. Against this backdrop, this study aims to evaluate the impacts of environmental regulations and other vital macroeconomic aggregates on the ecological footprints in the context of four fossil fuel-dependent South Asian countries: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The major findings from the econometric analysis, accounting for cross-sectional dependency, slope heterogeneity, and structural break issues in the data, reveal that environmental regulations portray significant roles in directly and indirectly reducing the ecological footprints across South Asia. Besides, the elasticity estimates verify the authenticity of the environmental Kuznets curve and the pollution haven hypotheses. On the other hand, non-renewable and renewable energy consumptions are found to increase and decrease the ecological footprints, respectively. Moreover, renewable energy use and environmental regulations are found to jointly reduce the ecological footprints further. More importantly, environmental regulations are predicted to reduce the adverse environmental impacts of economic growth, non-renewable energy use, and foreign direct investment inflows while increasing the favorable environmental impacts associated with renewable energy use. Furthermore, the country-specific impacts of environmental regulations on the ecological footprints are found to be more or less homogeneous to the corresponding panel estimates. The environmental Kuznets curve and pollution haven hypotheses are evidenced to hold for the majority of the four South Asia nations. In line with these findings, several relevant policy-level suggestions are put forward.

Sustainable construction through energy management practices in developing economies: an analysis of barriers in the construction sector

In the recent era, energy management practices (EMPs) have gained significant importance in developed countries, due to their cost efficiency and the potential to protect the environment. However, developing countries are not particularly serious about adopting and implementing sustainable construction practices, due to the different barriers that hinder them from doing so. Therefore, the complete adoption of effective EMPs is still at the initial stage. The objective of this study is to identify the barriers to EMPs adoption, in the construction sector of Pakistan. Initially, the barriers were identified from the earlier studies and screened by the fuzzy Delphi method (FDM). These screened barriers were then evaluated through the ISM. The results of the ISM show that there happens to be a "lack of communication and collaboration among project stakeholders," "attitudinal, cultural and behavioral resistance to adopt EMPs", "lack of top management support and interest in energy management issues," "no condition for implementing EMPs on construction site," and "lack of financing schemes to implement energy management technology," as the top barriers to EMPs adoption in the construction projects pertaining to Pakistan. Thus in this regard, this study empirically contributes to EMPs literature that is based on the developing countries and supports the policymakers in developing appropriate strategies to reduce energy consumption in construction projects-especially in developing countries.

Analysis of environmental degradation mechanism in the nexus among energy consumption and poverty in Pakistan

The study aims to analyze the mediating role of environmental degradation (ED) in the association between energy consumption (EC) and poverty (POV) in Pakistan. For this purpose, data are collected from different sources such as the global economy and World Bank ranging from 1985 to 2017. Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test is used for testing the stationarity of data. Results of ADF depict that data are stationary at the level and first difference; so this study adopts the autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) model bound test for analyzing the long-run and short-run relationship among the modeled variables. The study follows the steps of Baron and Kenny's (1986) method to test the mediation of environmental degradation between energy consumption and poverty. The study utilized the Sobel test and VAF to confirm the mediation. The results indicate a negative and significant impact of energy consumption on poverty. The findings revealed that ED partially mediates the long-run relationship between EC and POV. The study suggests that the government makes the energy accessible to the people to fulfill their basic needs which ultimately reduces poverty. Moreover, the government should make policies to improve the environment as the study found that environmental degradation significantly contributes to poverty.

Impacts of environmental taxes and technologies on greenhouse gas emissions: contextual evidence from leading emitter European countries

With growing concerns about climate change, global warming and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, environmental taxes, renewable energy consumption, and environmental technologies have caught attention from researchers, policymakers, and concerned organizations in developed and developing world. The environmental-related taxes and carbon and energy taxes are considered as effective tool and highly recommended by economists and environmental scientists in developed nations (e.g., European economies). To this end, the current study examines the role of environmental policies and regulations and cleaner energy consumption for GHG emissions across leading emitter countries in Europe. The study used annual data of variables from 1994 to 2018 for nine leading European economies. The empirical estimates of quantile regression, FMOLS, and DOLS revealed that environmental taxes and promotion of cleaner energy sources can be effective to reduce overall pollution efflux. The study reports new implications regarding sustainable development goals.

Do environmental taxes and environmental stringency policies reduce CO2 emissions? Evidence from 7 emerging economies

Environmental tax and environmental policy stringency are becoming central policy instruments for combating environmental degradation but there is a lack of studies that assess their combined effectiveness in mitigating emissions especially for emerging economies. We address this important gap by assessing the effectiveness of these two policy instruments in reducing CO2 emission in a panel of 7 emerging economies for the period 1994-2015. We believe that this is the first attempt to apply these two important policy instruments in the same framework for testing their effectiveness in reducing CO2 emissions in these 7 emerging economies. We apply heterogeneous panel data considering cross-sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity tests by using the Augmented Mean Group (AMG) which is efficient and unbiased and produces consistent estimates. We found an inverted U-shaped relationship between CO2 emissions and environmental policy stringency suggesting that it takes time for environmental policy stringency to be effective. We also found unidirectional causality running from environmental policy stringency to CO2 emission. CO2 emission was negatively and significantly related to total environmental tax with causality running from total environmental tax to CO2 emission thus supporting the "green dividend" hypothesis of improving environmental quality. In contrast, CO2 emission and energy taxes were not causality related but CO2 emission was negatively and significantly related to energy taxes. Robustness checks using the FMOLS also show that both environmental policy stringency and environmental taxes can be effective in mitigating CO2 emissions.

Environmental Kuznets Curve and the Pollution-Halo/Haven Hypotheses: An Investigation in Brazilian Municipalities

There is much discussion on the non-linear relationship between economic growth and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Additionally, the effects of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on the environment are ambiguous, as both beneficial (i.e., pollution-halo) and harmful (i.e., pollution-haven) effects were found. Therefore, the literature presents no consensus on either of these topics. This is especially problematic for developing regions, as these regions represent growing economies interested in receiving foreign investments, and their CO2-related research is limited. This study aims to understand the impacts of economic growth and FDI on the CO2 emissions of São Paulo state, Brazil. To perform this study, a unique dataset on regional FDI was built, and 592 municipalities were included. The analyses combine linear and non-linear estimations, and the results suggest a non-linear relationship between Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and CO2 emissions, along with a negative association between FDI and CO2. Finally, this study discusses possible policy implications and contributes to the international literature.