The relationship between external debt and ecological footprint in SANE countries: insights from Kónya panel causality approach

How does external debt and governance quality impact renewable energy consumption: novel policy insights from BRICS countries

Amidst global environmental reforms, the role of energy systems is under scrutiny to promote ecological welfare through low-carbon alternatives. Amongst the solutions, the role of renewable energy as a clean source has become popular to mitigate climate change. However, the impact of debt on renewable energy consumption remains limited in the economic literature. The debt initiatives provide funding for environmental initiatives primarily, while it is also credited as a barrier to limiting the growth of clean energy programs. Within such discussion, the current study extended the dialogue by examining how external debt impacts energy transition in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) economies in the presence of institutional quality, education expenditures, and banking development. Using the novel CS-ARDL, AMG, and CCEMG tests, the study results showed that external debt decreases renewable energy consumption, while institutional quality, educational expenditures, banking developments, and economic growth are essential elements of green energy developments. Based on these conclusions, this study provides novel policy guidelines to align BRICS energy and economic agendas.

Carbon reduction through renewable energy and digitalization in emerging economies: Moderating role of public debt

Utilizing renewable energy (RE) and embracing the digital economy (DIG) can significantly contribute to achieving economic, energy, and climate goals by promoting carbon reduction. In this regard, public debt (DEB) is particularly important since it provides the funds required to achieve these goals by investing in renewable energy and digital economy projects. This study examines the impact of public debt on the link between renewable energy and carbon emissions (CE), as well as the association between the digital economy and carbon emissions in emerging economies from 2003 to 2022. The study employed cross-sectional augmented autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) estimation to check the relationship between the variables. The findings of our study suggest that the integration of renewable energy sources and the growth of the digital economy have a positive impact on reducing carbon emissions. On the other hand, public debt has a positive effect on carbon emissions. In addition, the findings support the notion that interaction terms (RE × DEB) and (DIG × DEB) have a diminishing effect on carbon emissions. It can be concluded that the reduction of carbon emissions is contingent upon the utilization of public debt to promote the growth of renewable energy and the digital economy. Based on our study, it is recommended that emerging economies' needs focus on boosting renewable energy usage and digital economy initiatives. Additionally, it is necessary for these economies to maintain a sustainable level of debt.

Exploring the determinants of methane emissions from a worldwide perspective using panel data and machine learning analyses

This article contributes to the scant literature exploring the determinants of methane emissions. A lot is explored considering CO2 emissions, but fewer studies concentrate on the other most long-lived greenhouse gas (GHG), methane which contributes largely to climate change. For the empirical analysis, a large dataset is used considering 192 countries with data ranging from 1960 up to 2022 and considering a wide set of determinants (total central government debt, domestic credit to the private sector, exports of goods and services, GDP per capita, total unemployment, renewable energy consumption, urban population, Gini Index, and Voice and Accountability). Panel Quantile Regression (PQR) estimates show a non-negligible statistical effect of all the selected variables (except for the Gini Index) over the distribution's quantiles. Moreover, the Simple Regression Tree (SRT) model allows us to observe that the losing countries, located in the poorest world regions, abundant in natural resources, are those expected to curb methane emissions. For that, public interventions like digitalization, green education, green financing, ensuring the increase in Voice and Accountability, and green jobs, would lead losers to be positioned in the winner's rankings and would ensure an effective fight against climate change.

Towards a green future for Sub-Saharan Africa: do electricity access and public debt drive environmental progress?

The combination of rising debt levels, poor electricity access, and environmental deterioration could threaten the attainment of the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Hence, this inquiry examined the implications of public borrowing and access to electricity on environmental sustainability (proxied by ecological footprint (ECOL) and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions) in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), largely overlooked in the literature. In addition to pre-estimation, diagnostic, and robustness checks utilized in the study, the instrumental variable generalized method of moment (IV-GMM) approach is employed to examine annual data from 39 SSA economies between 2005 and 2018. The key findings indicate that public debt negatively influences environmental sustainability in the region at a certain level of threshold, while access to electricity has the potential to trigger environmental sustainability but remain below the expected threshold to mitigate environmental damage in SSA. The study provides recommendations for SSA policymakers to significantly reduce pollution and protect the environment which is vital for sustainable development.

Technological innovations, renewable energy, globalization, financial development, and carbon emissions: role of inward remittances for top ten remittances receiving countries

Asides from renewable energy consumption, technological innovation and remittances are mostly ignored as critical tools and resources that can be adopted to ameliorate environmental worries, even when remittances have more considerable resource inflow than official development aids. Based on this information, the current research investigates the implications of technological innovation, remittances, globalization, financial development, and renewable energy on CO2 emissions in top remittances-receiving countries from 1990 to 2021. To obtain reliable estimates, we use a battery of advanced econometric techniques and method of moments quantile regression (MMQR) method. The AMG results suggest that innovation, remittances, renewable energy, and financial development alleviate CO2 emanations, whereas globalization and economic growth worsen environmental sustainability by increasing CO2 emissions. Besides, the MMQR results confirm that renewable energy, innovation, and remittances decrease CO2 emissions across all quantiles. A bidirectional causality exists amid financial development and CO2 emanations, and across remittances and CO2 emissions. However, one-way causality flows from economic growth, renewable energy and innovation to CO2. This study suggests some essential measures for ecological sustainability in light of the findings.

Unbundling the dynamic impact of renewable energy and financial development on real per capita growth in African countries

Industrialization is considered imperative for growth but energy transitions are paramount for inclusive and green growth especially for a region with low financial sector development to spur investment in renewable energy. This study thus unbundles the interrelation among renewable energy production, financial development, and real per capita growth in 32 selected African countries from the period of 1996 to 2018. These countries are categorized on the basis of oil-rich and non-oil-rich as well as income levels. The study employs Pooled Mean Group, Augmented Mean Group, and Dynamic OLS, and key findings are established. The findings reveal a significantly positive renewable energy-economic growth relationship in all the different groups. Financial development is also found to improve economic performance in all categories except in non-oil-rich African countries. These findings empirically support the need for cleaner energy in the production process to spur inclusive and green growth amidst current global concern for climate change and global warning. This study thus recommends the restructuring of the energy pricing system, provision of long-term finance, adoption of risk mitigation instruments, and improved institutional framework for private participation in renewable energy infrastructural development for growth sustainability in Africa.

Military spending, financial development, and ecological footprint in a developing country: insights from bootstrap causality and Maki cointegration

Military spending is required for national sovereignty, but it comes at a cost. The ecological consequences of military activities remain insufficiently investigated, especially in developing countries, where military spending is on the rise due to terrorism and civil unrest created by different secessionists' groups. As such, this study has a maiden attempt to address this gap by exploring the effects of military spending on the ecological footprint (EF) using the bootstrap causality test and the Maki (2012) cointegration test under multiple structural breaks. The findings suggest that military spending increases the EF. Also, while energy consumption and economic growth degrade the environment, financial development enhances environmental wellbeing by reducing the ecological footprint. The causality results suggest a unidirectional causality from military spending to EF, while feedback causality exists between military spending and economic growth. The result of this study affirms the existence of destruction theory and also provides a better understanding of the links behind environmental degradation and is applicable for the design and implementation of environmental policies.