Does ICT influence carbon emissions in the context of universal connectivity: a global perspective?

The Connect 2030 initiative, launched by the International Telecommunication Union, is in alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations Agenda 2030. Its main objective is to achieve universal connectivity, a goal that is closely related to environmental issues. This topic currently receives attention from researchers and policymakers. Given these considerations, our study investigates the impact of information and communication technologies on carbon dioxide emissions for a panel of 84 countries spanning the years 2009 to 2020. Using principal component analysis, we construct an ICT index that encompasses international bandwidth, reflecting the universal connectivity, and participation in international data exchanges. The empirical analysis applies the pooled mean group-panel autoregressive distributive lag (PMG-ARDL) approach to estimate both the long-run and short-run coefficients of CO2 emissions' determinants. Our findings show that ICT and renewable energy mitigate CO2 emissions, unlike financial development, GDP, and non-renewable energy, which contribute significantly to emissions for the full sample. These outcomes suggest that promoting ICTs in general and international bandwidth in particular, as part of universal connectivity, improves the quality of the global environment.

Is there a trade-off between ICTs and ecological systems in Africa? Evidence from heterogeneous panel methods robust to cross-sectional dependence

Among the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), increasing infrastructure resilience (SDG₉) and combating climate change and its impacts (SDG₁₃) have been vital goals. Growing evidence supports the presence of a trade-off between expanding information and communication technologies (ICT) infrastructure and maintaining the quality of the environment. Based on an ICT index and the ecological footprint, the present study reinvestigated the influence of ICT on environmental quality for a sample of African countries, where ICT services have substantially increased over the past decades. The study employed cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) and common correlated effects estimator (CCEMG) techniques on data representing 47 African economies between 1990 and 2017. The results of both methods were consistent and indicated an inverted U-shaped relationship between ICT infrastructure and environmental quality in the long and short run. The findings suggested that the expansion of ICT infrastructure could simultaneously enable African nations to achieve SDG13 and SDG9.

Information and communication technology (ICT) and environmental sustainability: a panel data analysis

This study investigates the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on carbon dioxide emissions for a panel of 91 countries over the period 1990 to 2017. The study constructs an ICT index through principal component analysis and tests for the presence of cross-sectional dependence (CSD) in the data. The study employs pooled ordinary least squares, fixed-effects model, and system-generalized method of moments estimation techniques with panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE) to tackle the issues of CSD in the data. The findings of the study show that ICT reduces CO₂ emissions for the full sample of countries. However, the comparative study of developed and developing countries depicts that ICT encourages environmental sustainability in developed countries whereas opposite results are found for developing countries. Moreover, presence of the environmental Kuznets curve is confirmed for the full sample as well as for developed and developing countries. It suggests that with higher levels of development of a country, it would be possible to contribute towards environmental sustainability along with ICT diffusion. Therefore, the outcome of this study may be helpful for policymaker and policies may be designed to encourage ICT investments in developing countries, as ICT will take care of environmental sustainability with higher levels of development.