Investigating the potential role of innovation and clean energy in mitigating the ecological footprint in N11 countries

Modelling energy trilemma and economic growth on renewables in N11 economies: Do economic complexity matter?

Utilizing renewable energy is a necessity for accomplishing global agendas, including combating climate change and promoting sustainable development programs. Although much literature has investigated the nexus between energy sources and their affected regressors during the last few years, no appreciable emphasis is available in the previous studies respecting the influence of the energy trilemma index and economic expansion on the influence of the energy trilemma index and economic the renewables in N11 economies. Therefore, the current study analyzes the crucial influencing factors, including the energy trilemma, economic growth, economic complexity, financial development, and urban population, as drivers of renewable energy in N11 economics from 1990 to 2021 by utilizing a panel quantile regression approach. The empirical outcomes certify that renewable energy is positively connected with the energy trilemma, economic growth, financial development, and urban population, but not with economic complexity, which has the inverse result. As a result, legislators responsible for monitoring the deployment of renewables should stimulate their attempts to consider the energy trilemma dimensions into account when determining energy structural policies, increase the use of greener energy subsidies, pose high-carbon taxes, promote green financial innovation, and improve energy efficiency.

Impact of technological innovation and renewable energy on ecological footprint in G20 countries: The moderating role of institutional quality

The connection between ecological footprint and economic complexity has significant implications for environmental sustainability regarding the policy. Additionally, institutional quality is crucial in ensuring environmental sustainability and moderating the link between economic complexity and ecological footprint. The task of achieving sustainable environmental development and preventing further degradation of the environment poses a formidable challenge to policymakers. This study delves into the significance of technology innovation and renewable energy in creating a more sustainable environment. Recognizing the need for a more critical review, this research establishes the dynamic linkage between ecological footprint, renewable energy consumption, and technological innovation, especially in conjunction with a moderating component, particularly institutional quality, in G20 countries from 1990 to 2021. We employ advanced panel approaches to address panel data analysis concerns, such as cross-sectional dependence, slope heterogeneity, unit root, cointegration test and CS-ARDL. The long-term estimator indicates that renewable energy and technological innovation negatively but significantly impact the ecological footprint. Whilst economic growth, FDI, and urbanization have shown a positive and significant impact on ecological footprint; institutional quality negatively moderates the relationship between ecological footprint, renewable energy, and technological innovation in the G20 countries. Further evidence from the Dumitrescu-Hurlin Granger causality test shows that efforts to expand access to renewable energy, technological advancements, and economic growth will significantly affect environmental impacts. Based on our results, it is imperative to introduce more favorable legislation and encourage technological advancements in the field of renewable energy if we want to achieve our sustainable development objectives.

Ecological footprint-technological innovations nexus: new empirical evidence from panel data estimations

The aim of this approach is to establish a relation between ecological footprint and technological innovations by using panel data techniques and taking Union for the Mediterranean member countries as the case. On the one hand, the Mediterranean region is an alarming region when it comes to environmental degradation; on the other hand, existing intergovernmental organizations such as the Union for the Mediterranean may provide a sound ground to take common action among all members against such a degradation. The approach takes eleven member countries from the Union for the Mediterranean (Bosnia and Herzegovina, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia, Türkiye) and observes them for the time frame 1992-2020. By using panel unit root tests and cross-sectional dependency tests, the data is being analyzed for further evaluation using mean group, common correlated effect mean group, and augmented mean group analysis. Regarding the observed variables, we could not identify a common trend for these eleven countries. For the sample of eleven countries, the impact of technological innovations was not significant, but country-level augmented mean group analysis results indicated that for Portugal, this impact was significant and positive.

Modelling natural gas, renewables-sourced electricity, and ICT trade on economic growth and environment: evidence from top natural gas producers in Africa

Addressing extensive global goals including growing energy-sourced electricity and advancing sustainable development plans strongly depends on natural gas as a transition fuel to renewable forms of energy. Therefore, by using pooled, random, and fixed-effects models, the current study investigates the effects of electricity sourced from natural gas (ENG), renewable energy (RE), and trade in information and communication technologies (ICTs) on economic growth and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in Africa's top three natural gas producers, Algeria, Egypt, and Nigeria, from 1990 to 2020. The findings indicate that CO₂, ENG, ICT trade, and urbanization (UP) are all strongly and positively correlated to economic progress, with the exception of RE, which has an insignificant influence. For the environment, data indicate that RE and GDP degrade the environment while ENG and ICT trade boost it. The causality results that ENG and RE cause both economic growth and CO₂ emissions. Based on these empirical results, it is recommended that policymakers should step up their efforts to usage natural gas as a transition fuel to renewable energy sources and acknowledge the advantages of the significant contribution that green ICT trade can make to economic advancement and a clean environment.

Does technology innovation complement the renewable energy transition?

The study assesses the relationship between technology innovation and renewable energy in the G10 countries. According to the findings, technology innovation has a significant impact on renewable energy in various countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, and the USA. It argues that technological innovation is one of the most important elements in renewable energy in these countries because of their strong innovative base and huge spending on research and development. However, the results for the remaining countries show no causation from technology innovation to renewable energy, implying that variables other than technology innovation drive renewable energy development. On the other hand, renewable energy does Granger cause technology innovation in Germany, the Netherlands, and the USA. These countries need to invest in implementation instead of spending on the existing infrastructure. Furthermore, the increased dependence on fossil fuels and nuclear energy may leave renewables undeveloped, with less emphasis on renewable-technology diffusion.

The ecological impact assessment of globalization dimensions and human capital: a dynamic approach in the case of selected fossil fuel-rich countries

The aggravation of climatic damage, the rise in pollution, and global warming have prompted investigation of factors leading to the increase in human demand on natural resources. Numerous studies have dealt with the connections linking human action with the environmental impact, but this research field remains insufficiently documented. Human resources constitute the center of decision to reduce the ecological footprint, but studies on the impact of human capital and the social and human dimension of globalization on environmental sustainability have been insufficiently analyzed. Therefore, the aim of this study is to verify the capacity of human capital and the social dimension of globalization in addition to its political and economic ones to mitigate environmental degradation. The study referred to the FMOLS, DOLS, and PMG-ARDL methods applied to 13 fossil fuel-rich countries spanning the period 1992-2017 and applied a set of robustness tests based on the cross-section dependence test, unit root tests, and Johansen combined test. The findings, based on FMOLS and DOLS techniques, demonstrate that human capital exerts positive long-term influence upon ecological footprint in the case of fossil fuel-rich countries. Globalization does not significantly impact ecological footprint: only political globalization is able to decrease deterioration in the environment, and neither economic nor social globalizations have an effect. When applying the PMG-ARDL approach, the results supported those derived from FMOLS and DOLS methods and revealed that human capital positively affects ecological footprint in the long term but without significant short-term effects. Our results also showed that globalization is beneficial for high-income countries and harmful for middle-income countries in terms of mitigating environmental degradation. So, the reduction of the ecological footprint in the fossil fuel-rich economies remains dependent on the actions taken by political decision-makers at the international level and on the awareness of human capital of the urgency of mitigating environmental degradation. A set of recommendations in favor of environmental sustainability, in particular those relating to human action and which can serve decision-makers, were formulated in this study.

Empirical analysis of the feasible solution to mitigate the CO2 emission: evidence from Next-11 countries

From the empirical findings, economic growth, energy consumption, fossil fuel use, and infrastructure all have a positive impact on CO2 emissions. Forest rent and industrialization show a mix of results to explain CO2 emissions in N-11 countries. Forest and agriculture have negative coefficients in most of the estimations which indicate the reduction of CO2 emissions in 11 countries. Through the evidence of variance decomposition (VD) analysis, this study found an inverted U-shaped EKC hypothesis in the long run. Moreover, through the econometric analysis, it is clear that forest area is important to reduce CO2 emissions in N-11 countries, where forest investment and planning would be effective for carbon reduction. Agricultural activities and production with green investment play an important role in mitigating CO2 emissions in N-11 countries.