Conflicts and ecological footprint in MENA countries: implications for sustainable terrestrial ecosystem

Achieving SDG-13 in the Era of Conflicts: The Roles of Economic Growth and Government Stability

Establishing effective climate control and reducing the ecological footprint (EF) are necessary for pursuing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular Goal 13. In this context, it is required to enhance the understanding of various factors that can either decrease or enhance the EF. In the literature to date, limited studies on external conflicts (EX) have reported diverse results, and also the impacts of government stability (GS) on EF are less explored. This study explores the roles of external conflicts, economic growth, and government stability on EF in the context of SDG-13. The study also contributes to the literature by examining the environmental effects of government stability and external conflicts for the first time in Pakistan. This research uses time-series methodologies on data from Pakistan from 1984 to 2018 for exploring the long-run relations and causal dynamics. The results unfolded that external conflicts stimulate and Granger cause EF and therefore expand environmental deterioration. Thus, limiting conflicts is in the favor of Pakistan to achieve SDG-13. Surprisingly, government stability also poses harmful impacts on environmental quality by enhancing the EF, indicating that stable governments focus on improving economic conditions rather than environmental quality. Moreover, the study proves the validity of the environmental Kuznets curve. Policy suggestions are made to move forward in achieving SDG-13 and to evaluate the effectiveness of government environmental policies.

On the link between shadow economy and carbon dioxide emissions: an analysis of homogeneous groups of countries

In the framework of an environmental Kuznets curve, the linkage between shadow economy and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions was evaluated for 145 countries from 1991 to 2017. In assessing the effect of the shadow economy on CO2 emissions, we used panel quantile regression, panel fixed effects, and panel smooth transition regression as estimation methods. In addition, to deal with parameter heterogeneity, we resorted to the procedure of Lin and Ng (2012). We found two country groups that share homogeneous parameters. No environmental Kuznets curve was found for the set of all countries. Nevertheless, one was found for each of the homogeneous parameter country groups. This result supports different turning points for different groups of countries. Shadow economy contributed to reducing CO2 emissions in group 1 and aggravated it in group 2. Manufacturing was revealed to be statistically significant for the countries of group 1. Fossil fuel rents increased the CO2 emissions, mainly in group 2. Urbanization contributed to the hike of CO2 emissions in both country groups but much more intensely for group 1. Evidence of a tendency for decreasing CO2 emissions was also found, reflecting the efficiency gains over time.

Moving towards the path of environmental sustainability in Developing-8 countries: investigating the role of country's reputation in mitigating environmental externalities

A country's reputation plays a crucial role in shaping public perceptions, attracting investment and promoting economic development. At the same time, good governance is essential for promoting environmental sustainability and addressing pressing environmental issues such as climate change, pollution and natural resource depletion. This study examines the impact of a country's reputation on environmental sustainability in Developing-8 countries using panel data obtained from the Worldwide Governance Indicators and World Development Indicators for the duration from 1996 to 2020. This panel study adopted the Method of Moment Quantile Regression with fixed effects and mean-based regressions. The results demonstrated that the impact of the country's reputation index on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is negative, yet significant. Also, all the country's reputation indicators negatively affect CO2 emissions, but the case of political stability is only significant in the mid-quantiles, while government effectiveness is albeit insignificant across quantiles. Furthermore, economic growth is observed to stimulate CO2 emissions, while renewable energy consumption decreases CO2 emissions. These results have an inherent heterogeneity, culminating in an asymmetric pattern of the distribution of CO2 emissions. The novelty of this study is, firstly, the construction of a country's composite reputation index for Developing-8 countries; and secondly, assessing the impact of this index in mitigating environmental externalities measured by CO2 emissions. Based on these findings, it is recommended, among other things, the need for the D-8 countries to improve their reputation policy to be able to attain the desired environmental sustainability.

Environmental quality outlook of the leading oil producers and urbanized African states

This study seeks to explore the links between energy consumption and environmental quality in the wake of rapid urbanization in Africa with empirical insights from the cases of Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, Algeria, Angola, Egypt, and South Africa. These countries aside from being among the largest economies; are also among the leading energy producers and the most urbanized economies that emit the most carbon dioxide on the continent. Based on the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) panel ARDL estimator, the dynamics nexus between the variables was estimated vis-à-vis the short-run and long-run coefficients using relevant sample data between 1990 and 2015. The study further examines the channels of causality between the variables while also testing for the validity of the popular Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for the panel of countries. The results confirm that the rising level of energy use significantly exacerbates the level of carbon emission among the countries in the study while growing urbanization significantly creates a negative impact on carbon emission. In addition, an increase in per capita income improves the environmental quality but the doubling of income per capita triggers environmental degradation, thus invalidating the EKC hypothesis in the examined panel economies. In essence, these countries have not reached the supposed turning point at which income growth can yield desirable emission mitigation effects. Following the findings, essential recommendations are provided for policymakers in the main text.

Regional and spatial impacts of external and internal conflicts on ecological footprint: the case of Middle East and Africa

The economic and environmental structures of countries are greatly impacted by domestic and foreign conflicts. To promote sustainable development, it is crucial to understand the spatial impact of these conflicts on the ecological footprint of a region. With a focus on Middle Eastern and African countries, this paper investigates the impact of such conflicts on their environments, taking into consideration the unique spatial features of their ecological footprints. Using a spatial econometric model, the study assesses the contributions of ecological footprint determinants, particularly internal and external conflict indicators, across 46 Middle Eastern and African countries from 2001 to 2019. The results indicate that internal conflict can lead to increased pressure on natural resources and ecological systems in neighboring countries, while energy use and economic growth impose a significant ecological burden both domestically and abroad. While urbanization and resource rents were found to reduce the ecological footprint, trade openness was found to be nonsignificant. Conflicts such as war, foreign pressure, civil war, and civil disorder were found to have a significant negative impact on the environment, suggesting that reducing these conflicts would improve environmental circumstances. The findings highlight the need for conflict resolution measures to achieve a sustainable environment in the Middle Eastern and African regions and have implications for other countries facing similar issues.

The marginal effects of economic growth, financial development, and low-carbon energy use on carbon footprints in Oman: fresh evidence from autoregressive distributed lag model analysis

Oman is committed to turning carbon neutral by 2040 whereby identifying the environmental sustainability-stimulating factors has become a critically important agenda for the nation. Against this backdrop, this study attempts to evaluate the marginal effects of economic growth, financial development, and low-carbon energy use on Oman's carbon footprint levels using quarterly frequency data spanning from 1984Q1 to 2018Q4. Controlling for structural break concerns in the data, the results from the empirical analysis verify the carbon footprint-related environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis for Oman in the long-run. In this regard, the threshold level of per capita real GDP level of Oman is predicted at around US $23,500 which is below the average and maximum per capita real GDP level of Oman during the period considered in this study. Besides, the development of the financial sector and scaling up consumption of low-carbon energy resources are evidenced to boost and curb Oman's short- and long-run carbon footprint figures, respectively. More importantly, the joint carbon footprint-mitigating impact of financial development and low-carbon energy use is also unearthed from the findings. In line with these major findings, a couple of relevant policy interventions are suggested to help Oman accomplish its 2040 carbon-neutrality agenda.

Spatial impact of foreign direct investment on ecological footprint in Africa

This study examines the spatial impact of FDI on ecological footprint of 31 African countries. In achieving this, the study uses the Driscoll-Kraay (1998) random effect model, fixed-effect instrumental variable regression, and the spatial Durbin model. There are three main important findings from this empirical study. First, FDI has a nonlinear impact on ecological footprint in Africa. At the initial stage, FDI reduces ecological footprint up to a threshold of $404.75-$669.96 million, before the impact increases ecological degradation. This result is robust to the instrumental regression model. Second, the results further reveal a significant spatial spillover of FDI on ecological footprint in Africa. Third, the empirical results provide evidence of both direct and spillover effects of environmental degradation determinant in Africa. This denotes that environmental quality of a particular country influences the environmental quality of other neighbouring countries. While it is important to attract significant amount of foreign investment to Africa, this study recommends that African governments need to improve their environmental regulations and laws to achieve transfer of energy-saving technology from foreign investors.

Environmental quality and its nexus with informal economy, corruption control, energy use, and socioeconomic aspects: the perspective of emerging economies

This paper explores the impacts of informal economic activities and institutional capacity, particularly, corruption control on the environmental quality degradation of emerging economies under the prevailing socio-economic conditions and energy use patterns of the countries. The study utilizes key environmental degradation indicators: Carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, ecological footprints (EFs), and Nitrous Oxide (NO) emissions, and a panel dataset of 15 emerging countries for the period 2002–2019 to undertake an empirical investigation. The pooled mean group (PMG)-ARDL estimator, Fully Modified OLS (FMOLS), Dynamic OLS (DOLS) and Augmented Mean Group (AMG) methods have been applied as empirical investigation techniques. The empirical findings reveal that in the long-run informal economic activities positively affect the environmental quality with fewer recorded emissions of CO₂ and EFs while these activities affect negatively to NO emissions. This study has also found that corruption control improves environmental quality by reducing EFs and NO emissions but works to the opposite by increasing recorded CO₂ emissions. An increase in economic growth and renewable energy consumption improves environmental quality in emerging countries, while consumption of non-renewable energy degrades the environmental quality. The robust empirical findings advocate policy initiatives for intense monitoring of informal activities and implementation of indirect tax policy to regulate informal activities and the pollution they cause. Careful measures of corruption control and initiatives to bring the informal economic activities into a formal framework are suggested to reduce CO₂ and NO emissions. An increase in economic growth with more focus on renewables and phasing out non-renewables can ensure green growth in emerging countries.

Modelling the economic and social issues related to environmental quality in Nigeria: the role of economic growth and internal conflict

Over the past decades, environmental quality-related issues have occupied a central place in the global discourse with greater concerns to the risk of civil war, terrorism/political violence, civil disorders, and corruption which alter economic sustenance and social structures in the world. This study presents and analyses an empirical model of economic and social issues related to environmental quality within the context of the environment Kuznets curve (EKC) in Nigeria between 1990 and 2016. The empirical results based on the standard ARDL model show that increases in internal conflict and corruption are environmentally deteriorative while increases in renewable energy consumption are found to be a major driver behind environmental quality improvement. The results also show that economic growth stimulates environmental degradation and hence validates the EKC hypothesis in Nigeria. These results are robust across the estimates of the dynamic ARDL simulations with deviation only in the responses ofshocks to internal conflict and corruption which significantly dampen environmental degradation in the short run--and the predicted values remain large over the long run. Furthermore, a unidirectional causal relationship flows from economic growth to ecological footprint, renewable energy, and corruption. Also, renewable energy has a predictive power for ecological footprint. In addition, internal conflict predicts renewable energy, while a change in internal conflict is caused by corruption. These findings, therefore, provide insightful policy implications for stimulating the consumption of renewable energy as a tool for sustainable cleaner environment.

The impact of financial development on renewable energy development in the MENA region: the role of institutional and political factors

This study focuses on the role of institutional factors as well as financial development in renewable energy transition in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region over the period 1990-2018, using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) pooled mean group (PMG) method. The investigation of long-run and short-run analysis confirms that institutional and political factors play a key role in promoting the transition to renewable energy and show that improving these factors can lead to decarbonization of the energy sector in the long run. Another important finding is that global financial development does not have a significant effect on the transition process in the long run, implying that the whole financial system needs a fundamental structural change to accelerate the substitution between polluting and clean energies. However, in the short term, the impact appears to be negative and significant, highlighting the inadequacy of financial institutions and financial markets in promoting the region's sustainable path. Moreover, income drives the transition to renewable energy in both short and long terms. The causality results show that both financial development and institutional quality lead to renewable energy transition, while there is a bidirectional link between income and renewable energy. This study can provide a very useful recommendation to promote a clean transition in the MENA region.

Exploring the linkage between export diversification and ecological footprint: evidence from advanced time series estimation techniques

In recent literature, scholars discussed the role of export diversification in environmental quality. However, most studies analyzed the role of export diversification in influencing carbon dioxide emissions with mixed results. However, since carbon dioxide emissions specifically capture the environmental effects of energy utilization, a change in the level of carbon dioxide emissions cannot be regarded as a comprehensive measure of environmental deterioration. Also, many previous studies use the original form of the Theil index to measure export diversification, and during the interpretation of the results, they disregard the fact that the lower value of the Theil index indicates higher diversification and vice versa. In this context, to address these gaps in the literature, a study on the contribution of export diversification in ecological footprint is necessary to understand the ecological impacts of export diversification. Therefore, this study analyzes the contribution of export diversification in ecological footprint covering the period between 1965 and 2017 using the STIRPAT model in the context of India which is required to fulfill the demands for resources of over 1.3 billion people. The study relied on the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis framework to understand the role of export diversification in ensuring environmental sustainability. Using the newly developed Augmented ARDL test, the study established that variables of interest are cointegrated. In the long-run estimation, export diversification reduces the ecological footprint of India and helps establish the inverted-U-shaped nexus between ecological footprint and economic growth. Thus, the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis was evidenced to hold for India. This important finding divulges that India can control the level of environmental footprints, and therefore decrease environmental degradation by continuously increasing export product diversification. Also, India is on the right path to achieve a reduction in ecological footprint associated with more development when accounting for export diversification in the model. Moreover, energy intensity boosts environmental deterioration, while population density reduces it. Finally, the study discusses strategies to achieve environmental sustainability through increasing export diversification.

The role of economic complexity in the environmental Kuznets curve of MINT economies: evidence from method of moments quantile regression

In the face of mounting climate change challenges, reducing emissions has emerged as a key driver of environmental sustainability and sustainable growth. Despite the fact that research has been conducted on the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC), few researchers have analyzed this in the light of economic complexity. Thus, the current research assesses the effect of economic complexity on CO2 emissions in the MINT nations while taking into account the role of financial development, economic growth, and energy consumption for the period between 1990 and 2018. Using the novel method of moments quantile regression (MMQR) with fixed effects, an inverted U-shape interrelationship is found between economic growth and CO2 emissions, thus validating the EKC hypothesis. Energy consumption and economic complexity increase CO2 emissions significantly from the 1st to 9th quantiles. Furthermore, there is no significant interconnection between financial development and CO2 emissions across all quantiles (1st to 9th). The outcomes of the causality test reveal a feedback causal connection between economic growth and CO2, while a unidirectional causality is established from economic complexity and energy use to CO2 emissions in the MINT nations. Based on the findings, we believe that governments should stimulate the financial sector to provide domestic credit facilities to industrialists, investors, and other business enterprises on more favorable terms so that innovative technologies for environmental protection can be implemented with other policy recommendations.

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

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