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Testing the effect of sustainable energy and military expenses on environmental degradation: evidence from the states with the highest military expenses

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Abstract

This paper aims to define the effects of military expenses and renewable energy consumption on carbon dioxide emissions for the ten countries with the highest military expenses, namely, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Russia, the USA, South Korea, India, France, Australia, China, and the UK from 1993 to 2017. The research applied the common correlated effects mean group estimator (CCEMG), dynamic CCEMG, and cross-sectional augmented autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) approaches. These dynamic techniques elucidate slope heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependency and solve the problem of unit root bias. It is found that the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis does not apply for this region. The findings demonstrate that military expenses increase carbon dioxide emissions; thus, the treadmill theory of destruction is valid for the panel of these countries, and it is also found that the consumption of sustainable energy decreases CO2 emissions. This suggests that a reduction in pollution can be achieved by increasing sustainable energies in the use of military vehicles to decrease emissions. Further important policy implications for the 10 countries with the highest military expenses are provided at the end of the paper.

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Acknowledgments

Special thanks go to the editor and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, which helped to improve the article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Near East University, TRNC Mersin 10, 99138, Nicosia, Turkey

    Aliya Zhakanova Isiksal

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  1. Aliya Zhakanova Isiksal
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The author conducted conceptualization, data collection, methodology, and writing of the article.

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Correspondence to Aliya Zhakanova Isiksal.

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Appendix

Appendix

Table 6 Slope homogeneity test outcomes
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Table 7 Westerlund and Edgerton (2007) test outcomes
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Table 8 Dynamic CCEMG test outcomes and CCEMG test outcomes
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Table 9 CS-ARDL test outcomes
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Isiksal, A.Z. Testing the effect of sustainable energy and military expenses on environmental degradation: evidence from the states with the highest military expenses. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 20487–20498 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11735-7

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