The interactional role of globalization in tourism-CO2 nexus in South Asian countries

Does tourism have an impact on carbon emissions in Asia? An application of fresh panel methodology

This research investigates the effects of tourism, GDP per capita, renewable energy, energy intensity, urbanization, and population on the environment in 40 Asian countries. Data from 1995 to 2019 are used in this analysis. Slope heterogeneity (SH), cross-sectional dependency (CSD), and the combination of level and first differenced stationary are all addressed using a new cross-sectionally autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) model in this work. Using Westerlund's cointegration method, these variables can be connected throughout time. To validate the findings, both augmented mean groups (AMG) and Common correlated effect mean groups (CCEMG) were utilized. The study results indicate that tourism helps slow the degradation of the natural environment. CO2 emissions increase as a result of variables such as population growth, energy use, and economic development. Only tourism and renewable energy can help cut CO2 emissions. As a consequence, CS-ARDL results are supported by results from AMG and CCEMG tests. Policymakers may be encouraged countries to adopt renewable energy and foster the expansion of the sustainable tourism industry.

Exploring the impact of economic growth on environmental pollution in South American countries: how does renewable energy and globalization matter?

Most emerging economies and the South American Countries are no exception to the negative consequences of trade-off between economic growth and environmental sustainability decisions. This study draws strength from the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs-7, 11, 12, and 13). Therefore, this study examines the environmental nexus between economic growth, globalization, renewable, and non-renewable energy, in South America from 1995 to 2020. We deployed the pooled mean group (PMG), mean group (MG), and dynamic fixed effects (DFE). Cross-sectional dependence, panel unit root, and cointegration tests were performed. Finally, we used the Dumitrescu and Hurlin test of causality to determine the long-run association between variables. The finding indicates that while environmental pollution increases with increasing economic growth, it decreases with increasing renewable energy both in the short and long term. Whereas economic globalization positively affects environmental pollution in the long term, social globalization and the moderation effect between political globalization and renewable energy improves environmental quality in the long run. Finally, a bidirectional causality was found between economic growth and environmental pollution, with a unidirectional causality running from economic, political, and social globalization, renewable, and non-renewable energy to environmental pollution. Given these findings, we discussed potential policy measures.

Economic policy uncertainty and CO2 emissions: a comparative analysis of developed and developing nations

Energy consumption is essential for economic growth; however, its consumption also increases CO2 emissions, which contributes to climate change and environmental degradation. However, both environmental sustainability and sustainable development can be achieved by clean energy (CE) consumption since it consists of noncarbohydrates energy sources that seldom or do not cause CO2 emissions. Therefore, the current study considers economic policy uncertainty (EPU) to study the impacts of CE on CO2 emissions that control economic growth (GDP) and urbanization in both developed and developing nations. The findings from ARDL show that EPU significantly increases CO2 emissions in both the long and short run for both developing and developed nations. While CE and urbanization contribute to improving environmental quality. Economic growth increases CO2 emissions. The results could have a few significant practical impacts on economic policies across which policymakers could try to reduce policy uncertainty by participating in and organizing international treaties and summits. Additionally, international organizations could organize programs to reduce EPU. The role of political stability can be effective in reducing EPU in these countries. Moreover, these nations should introduce environmentally friendly innovation and clean energy technologies and give tax releases on the import and use of CE products while increasing R&D budgets.

Financial Institutional and Market Deepening, and Environmental Quality Nexus: A Case Study in G-11 Economies Using CS-ARDL

This study presents a new insight into the dynamic relationship between financial institutional deepening (FID), financial deepening, financial market deepening (FMD), foreign direct investment (FDI), economic growth (GDP), population, and carbon dioxide emissions (CO2e) in the G-11 economies by employing a cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) approach during 1990-2019. The outcomes from the CS-ARDL and dynamic common correlated effects mean group (DCCEMG) models shows that financial deepening, GDP, FDI, and population degraded environmental quality both in the short run and the long run. Contrary to this, FID and FMD improves environmental quality in these countries. The government should work to maximize financial institutions (access, depth, efficiency) and financial markets (access, depth, efficiency) to reduce the CO2e. A strong positive and in-phase correlation of CO2e with economic growth and population is observed for G-11 countries. These results suggest policy makers should further improve financial institutions by creating opportunities for their populations. Moreover, the governments of G-11 countries should revise their foreign direct investment policies and attention should be given to import efficient means of energy production.

Assessing the linkages of economic freedom and environmental quality in South Asian Countries: application of CS-ARDL

We examine the linkages of economic freedom (ECF), energy use, and CO₂ emissions in selected South Asian countries of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Annual data from 1995 to 2018 are analyzed by employing second-generation methodologies. Cross-sectional autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) is used because this method incorporates the cross-sectional dependence among the data. This work uses three models, where the dependent variables are gross domestic product (GDP), CO₂ emissions, and energy use. The findings reveal that ECF and energy use contributes to more economic development. ECF is improving air quality by lowering CO₂ emissions. The findings suggest that these countries need to increase the percentage of renewable energy in their energy generation mix. At the same time, there is a need to integrate ECF with environmental awareness programs. This will not only increase air quality but also increase economic growth. GDP is found to be dependent on energy use; however, increased energy use from non-renewable also contaminates the environment. Therefore, South Asian countries need to invest more in research and development projects to promote renewable energy.

Controlling air pollution by lowering methane emissions, conserving natural resources, and slowing urbanization in a panel of selected Asian economies

The destruction of the earth's ecosystems is the most pressing issue globally. Carbon emissions account for nearly half of global air pollution. Methane is the primary source of ground-level ozone and a significant source of greenhouse gases (GHGs), with greater warming potential than carbon dioxide emissions. The study examines the impact of the different methane emissions (released by agriculture, energy, and industrial sectors), urbanization, natural resource depletion, and livestock production on carbon emissions in the panel of selected Asian countries for the period of 1971 to 2020. The results show that energy associated methane emissions, livestock production, natural resource depletion, and urbanization are the main detrimental factors of environmental degradation across countries. The causality estimates show the unidirectional relationship running from livestock production and agriculture methane emissions to carbon emissions, from total methane emissions and carbon emissions to urbanization and from urbanization to energy methane emissions and livestock production. The forecasting estimates suggest that total methane emissions, natural resource depletion, and urbanization will likely increase carbon emissions over the next ten years. The study concludes that the energy sector should adopt renewable energy sources in its production process to minimize carbon emissions. Urbanization and excessive resource exploitation must be curtailed to attain carbon neutrality.

Associating Renewable Energy, Globalization, Agriculture, and Ecological Footprints: Implications for Sustainable Environment in South Asian Countries

The main purpose of this work is to investigate the impacts of globalization (GL), renewable energy (RE), and value-added agriculture (AG) on ecological footprints (EF) and CO₂ emissions. For quantitative analysis, this research paper includes yearly data from 1990-2018 for four South Asian nations: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. These countries are most vulnerable to climate hazards and rapid economic transitions. The Westerlund test provides a strong association among the panel data. The findings of ordinary least squares (DOLS) and fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) show that RE is lowering CO₂ emissions and EF in the long run. A 1% increase in RE results in a 10.55% and 2.08% CO₂ decrease in emissions and EF, respectively. Globalization and AG are contributing to environmental degradation in selected South Asian countries. Therefore, these countries need to exploit solar energy to its full capacity. Moreover, these countries need to explore more RE resources to reduce their dependence on non-RE sources. These countries can make their agricultural sectors sustainable by following efficient farming practices. Environmental awareness should be enhanced among the farmers. Farmers can use animal fertilizers and clean inputs in AG to achieve sustainable agricultural products. Overall, this work suggests that these countries can achieve a cleaner environment by adopting RE and by promoting efficient technologies through globalization.

Quantile relationship between globalization, financial development, economic growth, and carbon emissions: evidence from Vietnam

Environmental quality and economic activity have a strong relationship. Carbon emissions remain one of the world's most dangerous environmental issues. Both international and local governments are developing initiatives to address this problem. Capitalizing on the limitations of the existing literature, this article investigates the dynamic nexus of financial development, economic growth, and globalization on carbon dioxide emissions in Vietnam for 1990-2020 using the quantile-on-quantile regression. The findings unveil a positive feedback link between globalization and carbon dioxide emissions at the middle and high quantiles. In addition, there is a negative nexus between financial development and carbon emissions at most quantiles, while CO₂ emissions and economic growth have a positive association at all quantiles. More importantly, our empirical results also provide the bidirectional causality between financial development, economic growth, globalization, and carbon dioxide emissions in Vietnam at different quantile levels. The consistency of the outcomes uncovers that the findings are trustworthy and appropriate for guiding policy to reduce CO₂ emissions in Vietnam. Therefore, they can help policymakers understand how financial development and globalization can achieve sustainable economic growth and tackle environmental issues in this country.

Analyzing the role of meteorological parameters and CO2 emissions towards crop production: empirical evidence from South Asian countries

It is need of the hour to investigate the impacts of climate parameters on agricultural production in a developing region of South Asia. Therefore, this work attempts to explore the climatic indicators on agricultural production for selected South Asian countries over the annual data of 1961-2016. This study estimates the impacts of rainfall, temperature, rural population, land under cereal production, and CO₂ emissions (ECO₂) on agricultural production. For empirical analysis, we applied second-generation unit root tests. After examining the order of integration of time series, we check for the co-integration among the variables. Before the co-integration test, we check for cross-section dependence among the variables. CD and LM tests confirm the existence of cross-section dependence. Afterward, we apply the Westerlund co-integration test to confirm the strong association among the variables. Further, we applied two methods for long-run coefficients of independent variables. Dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) and fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) tests were applied to cross-check the findings. Our findings show that rural population and rainfall are negatively associated with agricultural production. Moreover, temperature, land area under cereal production, and ECO₂ are positively associated with agricultural production. Our findings shed light on some important policy implications for South Asian countries.

Biomass energy consumption and its impacts on ecological footprints: analyzing the role of globalization and natural resources in the framework of EKC in SAARC countries

Research scholars have diverted their attention towards the effect of biomass energy use on ecological footprints. Although recent research has investigated this association, the link between ecological footprints and biomass energy consumption has not provided consistent results. Therefore, this research attempts to fill the gap by examining the ecological footprints-biomass energy consumption nexus in the context of environmental Kuznets curve over the period of 1990-2016 in South Asian Association for Regional Corporation (SAARC) countries. Moreover, this work incorporates globalization, natural resources, and economic growth (GDP) for empirical analysis. In doing empirical analysis, we applied some econometric analysis to deal with the issue of cross-sectional dependence in the data. The outcomes of fully modified ordinary least squares and dynamic ordinary least squares estimations show that biomass energy consumption increases ecological footprints in SAARC countries. Moreover, globalization and GDP are also increasing ecological footprints. Environmental Kuznets curve cannot be validated in estimated countries. The Dumitrescu-Hurlin causality test confirms one-way causality from biomass energy usage to ecological footprints. On the base of empirical results, several policy implications are suggested for SAARC countries.

The effect of technological innovation, FDI, and financial development on CO2 emission: evidence from the G8 countries

The nexus of foreign direct investment and economic growth has been extensively investigated by the researchers of environmental economics; however, few studies have been conducted to find the impact of financial development and technological innovation in the backdrop of the environment. In the G8 countries (UK, USA, Canada, Germany, France, Italy Russia, Japan), the rapid increase in urbanization resulting from their speedy economic growth has brought about a huge increase in energy consumption that is in turn responsible for contemporary environmental degradation. This research intends to find the impact of technological innovation, financial development, foreign direct investment, energy use, and urbanization on carbon emission in G8 member countries, based on data from 1990 to 2019. The findings present strong cross-sectional dependence within the panel countries. According to the FMLOS estimator, a statistically significant long-run and negative association with CO2 has been found between foreign direct investment, financial development, and technological innovation in G8 countries. A long-run bidirectional causality has been found among economic growth, financial development, urbanization, trade openness, CO2 emission, and energy use; antithetically there is unidirectional causality between carbon emission and foreign direct investment. A quality foreign direct investment is the present demand for the development of industries, technological innovation, and financial development for G8 countries. Furthermore, urbanization plays a major role in environmental degradation, and more improved policies are needed for these countries.

Evaluating the Influences of Natural Resources and Ageing People on CO2 Emissions in G-11 Nations: Application of CS-ARDL Approach

Globalization as well as the ratio of ageing people in the group of 11 (G-11) countries has seen a rapid increase in recent years. Therefore, this study aims to provide effective policy recommendations for sustainable development goals 13, 8, and 7, for the G-11 countries. This work estimates the impact of natural resources and the ageing population on the emission of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in G-11 countries using panel data from 1990–2020. For empirical results, second-generation methods were applied. The Westerlund co-integration test that assesses co-integration confirms the firm association among the parameters, and the values of coefficient of the cross-sectional autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) approach show that a 1% increase in the ageing population will lower the emissions of CO₂ by 13.41% among G-11 countries. Moreover, the findings show that there exists an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) among natural resources, globalization, economic growth, ageing people, and the emission of CO₂. Based on the findings, this work presents some important policy implications for achieving sustainable growth in the G-11 countries. These countries need to lower the amount of energy obtained from fossil fuels to improve air quality.

Effects of population structure on CO2 emissions in South Asian countries: evidence from panel estimation

The rapidly changing population structure in South Asian countries is observed to be linked with growing social, economic, and environmental problems. Therefore, to enhance current wave of knowledge, this research investigated the effect of population structure on CO₂ emissions in some selected South Asian countries (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal) over the period of 1990-2016. The results showed that age structure is associated with CO₂ emissions in the long run in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Nepal. In addition, age structure drives more CO₂ emissions in India than in any other countries. People with age less than 15 years and people with age more than 65 years are responsible for increasing CO₂ emissions in India. On the other hand, in Pakistan, people of age less than 15 years are responsible for reduction of CO₂ emissions in the long run. In Nepal, age group of young people (less than 15 years) exerts negative effects on CO₂ emissions. The governments of these countries need to put serious attention toward age structure in order to improve air quality.

Particulate matter (PM2.5) and diseases: an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) technique

Air pollution can be attributed to the reduction in visibility, less agricultural activity, more health issues, and long-term destruction to infrastructure. This paper aimed to examine the validity of association among the Particulate matter (PM_2.5) and number of acute upper respiratory infection (ARI) and Asthma (AS) patients using an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach. This ARDL model study was conducted in Lahore, Pakistan. We used monthly data of ARI and AS patients acquired from Directorate General Health Services Punjab and PM_2.5 from Air Visual-IQAir during the period January 2018-August 2019. ARDL bound testing technique was used to investigate the association between number of AS, ARI patients and PM_2.5. In the short run, the PM_2.5 has substantial positive impact on number of AS patients in Lahore. The values of short-run coefficient depicts that the association between PM_2.5 and ARI patients is stronger than AS. The effect of PM_2.5 on number of patients in short term is more than that in the long-term. For both AS and ARI, in the long run, PM_2.5 has negative impact on number of patients.

CO2 emissions and the role of urbanization in East Asian and Pacific countries

Considering the anthropogenic activities and its adverse effects on the Earth's environment, the present study provides empirical evidence about the nexus between CO₂ emissions and urbanization over the period of 1982-2014 for East Asian and Pacific countries. After the application of Zivot Andrews (ZA) unit root test, we applied autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach for econometric analysis. The findings showed that urbanization is significantly decreasing CO₂ emissions in China, Japan, Hong Kong, and Mongolia. Moreover, urbanization is increasing CO₂ emissions in Singapore, Macao, and South Korea. This study put some policy implications for Singapore, Macao, and South Korea to consider there urbanization policies. They should promote green energy in their urban areas for sustainable development. Hence, the policy makers should reconsider their trade and urbanization policies in the region to achieve healthy and sustainable environment.

Transport energy consumption and carbon emissions: The role of urbanization towards environment in SAARC region

Most of the existing literature on environmental assessment has concentrated on the linkages between energy consumption and CO₂ emissions, and little attention has been paid to the association between transport energy consumption and CO₂ emissions, which cannot be underestimated. Therefore, the present study contributes to the literature on the sustainable transport sector and urban settlements in South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries through an analysis of annual data from 1996 to 2015. Two unit root tests revealed mixed orders of integration for all variables. The Kao cointegration test revealed a strong association among the variables. The panel mean group (PMG) estimator confirmed that urbanization and regulatory quality improve air quality in the SAARC region. Gross domestic product (GDP) and the use of transport energy lower air quality. Considering the role of transport energy use in increasing CO₂ emissions, this study provides some policy implications for the sustainable transport sector in SAARC countries. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2021;17:1286-1292. © 2021 SETAC.

Air pollution and hospitalization in megacities: empirical evidence from Pakistan

Air pollution has become a threat to human health in urban settlements, ultimately leading to negative impacts on overall economic system as well. Already developed nations and still developing countries both are at the risk of air pollution globally. In this scenario, this work aims to investigate the associations of asthma (AS) and acute upper respiratory infection (ARI) patients with satellite-based aerosol optical depth (AOD) and meteorological factors, i.e., relative humidity (RH), temperature (TEMP), and wind speed (WS). We applied second-generation unit root tests to provide empirical evidence. Two sets of unit root tests confirmed mix order of integration, and the other Westerlund co-integration test further showed strong linkages between estimated variables. Fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) and dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) tests were applied, only to explore that TEMP and WS lower the number of AS and ARI patients, but RH and AOD increase the number of patients. Therefore, in accordance with these findings, our study provides some important policy instruments to improve the health status in megacities of Pakistan.

Is industrial pollution detrimental to public health? Evidence from the world's most industrialised countries

BACKGROUND

Industrial pollution is considered to be a detrimental factor for human health. This study, therefore, explores the link between health status and industrial pollution for the top 20 industrialised countries of the world.

METHODS

Crude death rate is used to represent health status and CO2 emissions from manufacturing industries and construction, and nitrous oxide emissions are considered to be indicators of industrial pollution. Using annual data of 60 years (1960-2019), an unbalanced panel data estimation method is followed where (Driscoll, J. C. et al. Rev Econ Stat, 80, 549-560, 1998) standard error technique is employed to deal with heteroscedasticity, autocorrelation and cross-sectional dependence problems.

RESULTS

The research findings indicate that industrial pollution arising from both variables has a detrimental impact on human health and significantly increases the death rate, while an increase in economic growth, number of physicians, urbanisation, sanitation facilities and schooling decreases the death rate.

CONCLUSIONS

Therefore, minimisation of industrial pollution should be the topmost policy agenda in these countries. All the findings are consistent theoretically, and have empirical implications as well. The policy implication of this study is that the mitigation of industrial pollution, considering other pertinent factors, should be addressed appropriately by enunciating effective policies to reduce the human death rate and improve health status in the studied panel countries.