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Environmental cost of sustainable development and climate change: can SAARC shift some liability with renewable energy and efficiency?

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Abstract

Sustainable development holds the key not to resolve the problems every nation is facing these days but also for long-lasting effects. In the current era of digital age, each nation wants to achieve sustainable development for their future generations. In addition, environmental sustainability is an imperative module to achieve sustainable development. Hence, the present research work scrutinizes the energy efficiency, CO2 emission, and renewable energy on the sustainable development of SAARC countries through World Bank sample set from 1995 to 2019. The results infer that CO2 emissions, renewable energy, energy efficiency, GDP, and FDI show a strong correlation with sustainable development in SAARC counties. Furthermore, renewable energy and energy efficiency have been shown to be reliable instruments for reducing CO2 emissions and achieving sustainable development in SAARC countries. This research will help policymakers take preventative and constructive actions to achieve sustainable development by reducing CO2 emissions and uplifting the drivers of sustainable development.

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

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  1. China Center for Special Economic Zone Research, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China

    Lijuan Chen

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  1. Lijuan Chen
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This idea was given by Lijuan Chen. Lijuan Chen also has conducted data analysis and written the complete paper, read, and approved the final version.

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Correspondence to Lijuan Chen.

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Chen, L. Environmental cost of sustainable development and climate change: can SAARC shift some liability with renewable energy and efficiency?. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 67137–67149 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-15209-2

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