Re-investigating the nexuses of renewable energy, natural resources and transport services: a roadmap towards sustainable development

The impact of environmentally related taxes and productive capacities on climate change: Insights from european economic area countries

In a world increasingly threatened by climate change and its associated risks, there's an urgent need to actively seek solutions for environmental protection and sustainable economic development. Central to this effort is understanding the role of environmental taxes and productive capacities in shaping environmental outcomes. Focusing on countries within the European Economic Area (EEA), this research uses advanced second-generation econometric techniques to examine this relationship. The use of cross-sectional autoregressive distributive lag (CS-ARDL) and dynamic common correlated effects (DCCE) models allows for a robust examination of panel data and provides reliable results. The results reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship, or Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), between GDP growth and environmental degradation in the EEA economies. Furthermore, while our data reveal a significant negative correlation between environmental taxes and CO2 emissions, we find that productive capacities have a more significant impact on reducing these emissions. These findings call for further research into the effectiveness of policies to support productive capacities in achieving environmental protection goals in the EEA.

A dynamic relationship between renewable energy, agriculture, globalization, and ecological footprint of the five most populous countries in Asia

This study aims to examine the impact of globalization, renewable energy consumption, and agricultural value addition on the ecological footprint of selected five most populous countries in Asia during the period 1975-2020. The Westerlund cointegration test supports long-term cointegration relationships among the considered variables in selected countries. The long-term resilience results of the second-generation cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lag approach evidently demonstrate that agricultural value addition and globalization contribute significantly to the long-term ecological footprint of the five most populous countries in Asia. However, renewable energy consumption significantly reduces the ecological footprint. Moreover, the impact of economic growth on ecological footprint is significantly positive, while the square of economic growth had a significantly negative impact on ecological footprint, thus validating the inverted U-shaped environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis for specific Asian densely populated countries. The causality test results of Dumitrescu and Hurlin support the feedback hypothesis by showing a two-way causal relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growth. There is also a two-way causal relationship between agricultural value added and ecological footprint. Strategically, specific densely populated countries in Asia should encourage clean energy production and consumption in the agricultural sector, and the adoption of environmentally friendly technologies can improve environmental quality and agricultural production.

Sustainable development goals perspective: nexus between Christians' religious tourism, geopolitical risk, and CO2 pollution in Italy

Travel and tourism support a country's economy and improve its social outlook. The religious inclination is an important factor influencing tourism and constitutes a significant part of general tourism. Thus, assessing and evaluating its real impacts on a country is crucial. As the world continues to grapple with the effects of environmental degradation, numerous studies have delved into the research between tourism, energy consumption, and pollution emissions. However, the impact of religious tourism on the environment is often overlooked. To bridge this gap, this study explores the relationship between religious tourist arrivals, geopolitical risk, and environmental quality in Italy. By employing ARDL and wavelets coherence analysis on the Italian data from 1997 to 2019, the findings of this study reveal a mitigation effect of religious tourist arrivals and geopolitical risk on CO2 pollution levels. In contrast, it highlights the significance of foreign direct investment and transportation as significant contributors to CO2 pollution. In conclusion, the study highlights the crucial role that religious tourism and religious leaders can play in mitigating environmental pollution and the importance of considering this aspect in future environmental studies as well as emphasize the need for Italian authorities to pay close attention to the impact of foreign direct investment and transportation energy consumption on the environment to achieve sustainable development goals.

On energy transition-led sustainable environment in COP26 era: policy implications from tourism, transportation services, and technological innovations for Gulf countries

The present generation is witnessing the most devastating effects of global warming far beyond what was evident in the pre-industrial era. To forestall further ecosystem destruction, nations are working assiduously toward achieving sustainable global environment in decades to come, specifically by 2050. This ambitious goal prompts the convergence of countries in the last climate conference tagged COP26 which provides the roadmap to global sustainability. The resolutions of COP26 motivate the present study to assess the energy transition-led sustainable environment in Gulf countries, considering tourism, transport services, and technological innovation. The study employs annual data from 2005 to 2019 by relying on advanced second-generation estimators comprising cross-sectional ARDL (CS-ARDL), common correlated effects mean group (CCEMG), and augmented mean group (AMG). The study conducts robustness checks using quantile regression (QR) and quantile plots (QP). The results reveal that nonrenewable energy, tourism, and transport services hinder sustainable environment due to their inducing impacts on carbon emissions. Renewable energy and technological innovations promote sustainable environment by moderating the surge in carbon emissions. The QR results reveal that the regressors' effects are not one-off. For instance, the moderating effects of renewable energy correspond to increasing levels of the quantiles. In contrast, nonrenewable energy posits the opposite, thus confirming the energy transition-led sustainable environment hypothesis in the Gulf countries. Policy implications that drive sustainable environment are suggested based on the findings.

The long-term dynamic relationship between communicable disease spread, economic prosperity, greenhouse gas emissions, and government health expenditures: preparing for COVID-19-like pandemics

The spread of communicable diseases, such as COVID-19, has a detrimental effect on our socio-economic structure. In a dynamic log-run world, socio-economic and environmental factors interact to spread communicable diseases. We investigated the long-term interdependence of communicable disease spread, economic prosperity, greenhouse gas emissions, and government health expenditures in India's densely populated economy using a variance error correction (VEC) approach. The VEC model was validated using stationarity, cointegration, autocorrelation, heteroscedasticity, and normality tests. Our impulse response and variance decomposition analyses revealed that economic prosperity (GNI) significantly impacts the spread of communicable diseases, greenhouse gas emissions, government health expenditures, and GNI. Current health expenditures can reduce the need for future increases, and the spread of communicable diseases is detrimental to economic growth. Developing economies should prioritize economic growth and health spending to combat pandemics. Simultaneously, the adverse effects of economic prosperity on environmental degradation should be mitigated through policy incentives.

Post-COP26: can energy consumption, resource dependence, and trade openness promote carbon neutrality? Homogeneous and heterogeneous analyses for G20 countries

The need to halt the pervasive issue of global warming has triggered commitments from policymakers, international organizations, and research pundits with an ambitious goal of neutralizing carbon emissions, forming the core of COP26 in November 2021. Consequently, the carbon neutrality agenda is globally debated in the environment and economic growth literature. Given the preceding narratives, this study examines the tripartite effects of energy consumption, resource dependence, and trade openness on carbon neutrality in G20 economies from 2001 to 2019. The empirical evidence relies on homogenous and heterogeneous dynamic models based on a system generalized method of moments (GMM), fully modified ordinary least squares (FM-OLS), and quantile regression estimators. The following results are evident from the empirical analyses. Among the heterogeneous indicators, nonrenewable energy, oil rents, coal rents, and imports contribute to the surge in carbon emissions, while renewable energy, gas rents, and exports moderate carbon emissions. The homogenous impacts show that total energy consumption, total natural resource rents, and trade openness promote significant carbon emissions. Further, the long-run results from FM-OLS and the disintegrated mean effects from quantile regression are robust for the main short-run results based on the two-step system GMM. Based on the empirical fallout, investing in renewable energy and diversifying from natural resource exploration are among the emanating policy that can enhance the sustainability of the G20 environment.

Exploring the characteristics and driving factors of coupling coordination of regional sustainable development: evidence from China's 31 provinces

China's provinces' development conditions, levels, and models are quite different. Indeed, the contradictions in development are becoming increasingly prominent, and the task of sustainable development is becoming increasingly arduous. The difference in the coordination degree of the development of the economy, sci-technology, ecology, resources, and society (ESERS), and the influencing factors among the research areas have become the most concerned scientific proposition of regional sustainable development. This paper measures the ESERS coupling and coordinated development relationship among the five development levels of China's provinces on the coupling coordination model. The spatial autoregressive (SAR) and geographically weighted regression (GWR) models are used to capture the spatial correlation and spatial heterogeneity of the sustainable and coordinated development of various districts in China. The main research conclusions are as follows: (1) the coupling coordination relationship of different regions in China remained at the mild and moderate maladjusted recession stage. In each of the five dimensions (ESERS), the coupling coordination relationship is relatively weak. (2) In terms of temporal distribution, among the four geographical regions of China, except the northeast, the development of ESERS in the eastern, central, and western regions is shifting to a coordinated balance. In terms of spatial distribution, the unbalanced development of ESERS is mainly concentrated in the northeast and part of the western regions. (3) The backward industrial structure is the main reason leading to the unbalanced development of ESERS in China, while the degree of opening up, eco-environmental governance ability, and education investment intensity are the critical factors leading to the development differentiation of ESERS in different regions of China. Overall optimization of industrial structure is the best way to improve the balance of the overall development of ESERS in China, and strengthening human ecology and international construction is the more effective way to narrow the development differences of regional ESERS.

Impact of Oil Price, Economic Growth and Urbanization on CO2 Emissions in GCC Countries: Asymmetry Analysis

Oil prices and rapidly increasing urbanization could have a long-lasting impact on the environment in oil-abundant Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Therefore, the environmental role of oil price, economic growth, and urbanization on CO2 emissions should be tested. The present study investigates the impact of oil price, economic growth, and urbanization on CO2 emissions in those countries, considering asymmetrical relationships. For this purpose, a nonlinear autoregressive distributive lag cointegration approach is applied in GCC countries during the 1980–2019 period, and cointegration is corroborated in all investigated models. Long-run results show that rising economic growth positively affects CO2 emissions in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Decreasing economic growth positively affects CO2 emissions in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Moreover, the rising oil price has a positive impact on CO2 emissions and shows a scale effect in Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Moreover, it has a negative effect and corroborates technique and composition effects in Kuwait and the UAE. Further, decreasing oil prices has a positive impact on CO2 emissions in Bahrain and has a negative effect in Kuwait and the UAE. Lastly, urbanization positively affects CO2 emissions in Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and the UAE. Economic growth is found asymmetrical in all GCC countries, and the asymmetrical effect of oil price is also observed in all GCC countries except the UAE.

An Ideology of Sustainability under Technological Revolution: Striving towards Sustainable Development

The recent decades have witnessed an unprecedented surge in global warming occasioned by human anthropogenic activities. The ensuing effects have brought devastating threats to human existence and the ecosystem, with the sustainability of the future generations highly uncertain. Resolving this pervasive issue requires evidence-based policy implications. To this end, this study contributes to the ongoing sustainable development advocacy by investigating the impacts of renewable energy and transport services on economic growth in Germany. The additional roles of digital technology, FDI, and carbon emissions are equally evaluated using data periods covering 1990 to 2020 within the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) framework. The results show the existence of cointegration among the variables. Additionally, renewable energy and transport services positively drive economic growth. Furthermore, economic growth is equally stimulated by other explanatory variables, such as digital technology and carbon emissions. These outcomes are robust for both the long-run and short-run periods. More so, departures in the long run are noted to heed to corrections at an average of 60% speed of adjustment. The estimated models are confirmed to be valid based on the outcomes of the postestimation tests. Policy implications that support the path to sustainability are highlighted based on the findings.

Sustainable Tourism and Renewable Energy’s Potential: A Local Development Proposal for the La Florida Community, Huaral, Peru

Tourism contributes 10% to global gross domestic product (GDP), yet it generates 5% of all anthropogenic CO2, while 50 to 60% of carbon emissions are indirectly related to the sector. High levels of poverty afflict rural areas in developing countries, and sustainable tourism based on renewable energy is an ideal approach to generate local development. Our objectives are thus to gauge sustainable tourism’s influence on local development in the community of La Florida, Huaral, Peru and to evaluate the potential of renewable energy (solar and wind power) to propose an eco-efficient business alternative. A non-experimental, quantitative approach was used, in which 265 local residents completed a survey to ascertain their perspectives on the proposal. Moreover, the potential for solar and wind energy was measured to identify sustainable alternatives that residents might incorporate into local ventures. The results demonstrate a relationship between sustainable tourism and local development, as tourism activity enables community members to improve their quality of life and offers them the opportunity to generate new enterprises. Likewise, the assessment of renewable energy potential confirms its feasibility in this area.