• Energy Research

For the purpose of this study, the role of technological innovation is examined. Few studies have examined empirically and theoretically the relationship between technological innovation and ecological footprint in conjunction with other factors, such as the human capital index and renewable energy sources, such as biofuels and nuclear power. This study examines the impact of technological innovation on G-7 countries' ecological footprints from 1990 to 2020. A cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) model is used in the study. The results of the study show that technological innovation minimizes the ecological footprint. A lower ecological footprint is also associated with increased usage of human capital and renewable energy. Depletion of the natural environment is a short-term and long-term consequence of increased GDP growth. Our results confirm that ecologically sustainable technology enhances the quality of the environment. Consistent panel causality results were achieved. In the context of the G-7 countries, our study's results could support the idea that there are new policy ideas that could help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, and 13).

This study searches the impact of tourism growth on emission pollutants in Cyprus (north), which is a small island in the Mediterranean and has shown significant development in hotel and casino sectors in the last two decades. Results from time-series analyses reveal that an inverted U-shaped EKC hypothesis is confirmed for Cyprus with and without tourism development. Tourism also exerts positively significant and long-term effects on the levels of carbon emissions, revealing that growth in the tourism sector causes degradation in the environment.

Although economic development has been strong in the world's 18 most developed economies, carbon-dioxide emission (COE) has been steadily declining in recent decades. As a result, the purpose of this research is to investigate the role of variables that contribute to the reduction of COE in these economies by using a dataset 1990 to 2019. GDP, [Formula: see text], renewable energy use (REC), and technical innovation (INNO) have been selected as the independent variables for this study. A strategy based on asymmetric ARDL (NARDL) technique is utilized in conjunction with a pooled mean group (PMG) estimation technique to investigate the asymmetrical relationships between COE and the exogenous variables under consideration. For the purpose of determining the direction of causality, the Granger non-causality test is utilized. Furthermore, a unidirectional causality is discovered between GDP and CO2 emissions as well as between GDP and technological innovation. An environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis has been confirmed to exist, and renewable energy has been identified as a significant variable in reducing COE. The study also confirmed that COE is reduced by positive technological innovation shocks and increased by negative shocks. As a result of the findings, the study did a causality test and came up with policy recommendations.

Background Oil rents (OR) and natural gas rents (NGR) have significant contributions to the income of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) economies and may increase emissions. Moreover, spatial autocorrelation is expected in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions due to the geographically closed economies in the MENA region. Thus, we examine the impact of OR and NGR on CO2 emissions caring spatial dimensions and analyze the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). Methods We apply the spatial Durbin model technique on the effects of OR, NGR, and economic growth on CO2 emissions in 17 MENA nations from 2000–2019, i.e., Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Yemen. Moreover, diagnostic tests are applied to reach the most appropriate spatial specification and to have the most robust results. Results The results disclose that CO2 emissions have spillovers and emissions of any country can damage the environment of neighboring countries. The EKC is corroborated with a turning point of 38,698 constant 2015 US dollars. Israel and Qatar are in 2nd phase of the EKC, and 15 MENA economies are in 1st stage. Thus, the economic expansion of most economies has ecological concerns. The effect of natural gas rents is found statistically insignificant. Oil rents have minute negative effects on emissions of local economies with an elasticity coefficient of −0.2117. Nevertheless, these have a positive indirect effect with an elasticity coefficient of 0.5328. Thus, the net effect of oil rents is positive. One percent increase in oil rents could accelerate 0.3211% of emissions. Thus, we suggest the MENA countries reduce reliance on oil rents in their income to avoid the negative environmental effects of the oil sector.

The correlation between technological innovation, economic growth, renewable energy, and ecological footprint carries significant policy implications for environmental sustainability. Furthermore, financial inclusion can drastically affect the technology-climate nexus across different countries and its moderating impacts have received sufficient attention. To do this, this study examined how technological innovation, financial inclusion, economic growth, and renewable energy affected emerging economies' ecological footprint from 1990 to 2019. Additionally, this study also scrutinizes the moderating role of financial inclusion with other regressors on ecological footprint. To account for structural shifts, disguised cointegration, and numerous breaks in panel regression, this study applies advanced panel estimation methods for empirical analysis. The estimated outcomes exhibit that the influence of technical innovation, climate technologies, and renewable energy significantly reduces the ecological footprint levels. Besides, economic growth and financial inclusion significantly increase the ecological footprint levels in the emerging economies. Furthermore, the integration of innovative technology and renewable energy in emerging countries mitigates the adverse effects of financial inclusion by making it easier for creative technologies and reducing ecological footprints. These results show that emerging countries' innovative technology and renewable energy sources should be integrated with financial inclusion to enable long-term mitigation of environmental damages and sustainable growth. Based on these estimated findings, the research recommends that emerging economies should hasten technological innovations along with stronger financial development to curtail ecological concerns without hindering the pace of sustainable economic growth.

The available literature on sustainable energy use and economic growth nexus yields conflicting conclusions, as the effect can be positive, negative, or insignificant. This research explores the causal link between sustainable energy use and economic growth in G7-countries (Japan, Canada, Germany, Italy, France, United Kingdom, and United States) and E7-countries (Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, China, Mexico, India, and Turkey) countries from 1990 to 2019. We discover that sustainable energy use and economic growth are proportional. Our results show that sustainable energy use positively affects economic growth if E7-countries exceed a specific threshold. It is detrimental to economic growth for the E7 countries' sustainable energy use to fall below a certain threshold. The use of sustainable energy has no significant impact on economic growth, although it does have a positive and noticeable impact in the G7 countries. In order for the countries of the G7 to see positive economic growth as a result of their investment in renewable energy, it is necessary for those nations to surpass a certain threshold in terms of their use of sustainable energy.