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Impacts of environmental taxes and technologies on greenhouse gas emissions: contextual evidence from leading emitter European countries

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Abstract

With growing concerns about climate change, global warming and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, environmental taxes, renewable energy consumption, and environmental technologies have caught attention from researchers, policymakers, and concerned organizations in developed and developing world. The environmental-related taxes and carbon and energy taxes are considered as effective tool and highly recommended by economists and environmental scientists in developed nations (e.g., European economies). To this end, the current study examines the role of environmental policies and regulations and cleaner energy consumption for GHG emissions across leading emitter countries in Europe. The study used annual data of variables from 1994 to 2018 for nine leading European economies. The empirical estimates of quantile regression, FMOLS, and DOLS revealed that environmental taxes and promotion of cleaner energy sources can be effective to reduce overall pollution efflux. The study reports new implications regarding sustainable development goals.

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The datasets used during the current study are available from the corresponding or first author on reasonable request.

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

Umer Shahzad: introduction, revision, concept building, data. Mehdi Ben Jebli: literature review, methods, analysis, supervision. Assaad Ghazouani: literature review, editing, discussion, conclusion, and implications.

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Correspondence to Umer Shahzad.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Responsible editor: Nicholas Apergis

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Highlights

• Panel data of European countries is analyzed over 1994–2018.

• Environmental-related taxes induce to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

• Cleaner and greener technologies should be encouraged to reduce emissions.

• Urban population and income enhance climate change issues.

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Ghazouani, A., Jebli, M.B. & Shahzad, U. Impacts of environmental taxes and technologies on greenhouse gas emissions: contextual evidence from leading emitter European countries. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 22758–22767 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11911-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11911-9

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