Abstract
Poverty reduction and environmental sustainability are the two significant challenges the world needs to cope with in the twenty-first century worldwide. Environmental impact is a constraint in the path of poverty alleviation and sustainable development, as well. Considering ecological footprint as a measure of environmental sustainability and accomplishing sustainable development with time-series data spanning 2010–2016, this study explores the relationship between poverty and ecological footprint. The Driscoll-Kray regression estimator is employed as it is flexible for dependencies across countries, heteroscedasticity, and autocorrelation. Findings from the studies infer that a rise in poverty reduces the ecological footprint that affects environmental sustainability. An increase in ecological footprint reduces poverty as well. The study found there is a trade-off between poverty and ecological footprint. Ambient in environmental degradation contributes significantly to reduce poverty.
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The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the World Development Indicators, Global Footprint Network, and United Nations.
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The author would like to express his sincere appreciation to the Research Center, College of Engineering, King Saud University, for funding this research.
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Salah-Ud-Din Khan handled the entire manuscript.
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Khan, SUD. Environmental sustainability: a clean energy aspect versus poverty. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 13097–13104 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11520-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11520-6