Abstract
Unsurprisingly, many studies consider CO2 emissions to capture the environment quality needed for testing the augmented environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis. However, this is a major limitation of the existing literature because CO2 alone cannot account for environmental pollution. By employing a more comprehensive proxy ecological footprint, this study aims to examine EKC in G20 economies during 1991–2016. To achieve the objective, a second-generation panel data model was implemented, which accounted for the heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence. The findings reveal that environmental degradation has an inverted N-shaped linkage with economic growth in the selected countries. It is further observed that globalization, renewable energy consumption, and urbanization improve the environmental quality, whereas non-renewable energy consumption mitigates the quality of environment in G20 countries. With these conclusions, it is suggested that policymakers from these countries should emphasize on more renewable energy usage.
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Ansari, M.A., Haider, S., Kumar, P. et al. Main determinants for ecological footprint: an econometric perspective from G20 countries. Energ. Ecol. Environ. 7, 250–267 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40974-022-00240-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40974-022-00240-x
Keywords
- Ecological footprint
- Economic growth
- Renewable energy
- Environmental kuznets curve
- Globalization
- Cross-sectional dependency