Energy innovations and environmental sustainability in the U.S.: The roles of immigration and economic expansion using a maximum likelihood method

How does trade policy uncertainty affect green innovation in the USA and China? A nonlinear perspective

Green innovations are the most critical factor in promoting environmental sustainability worldwide. Trade can speed up the adoption of green innovations by facilitating the transfer of information, skills, and technology. However, trade policy uncertainty can create significant challenges for businesses investing in eco-innovations, leading to increased risk, reduced investment, and slower progress toward sustainable technologies. Recently, a growing number of researchers have shown their interest in finding the factors that can impact green innovations, but none have investigated the influence of trade policy uncertainty on green innovations in the USA and China. In addition, none of the past studies has relied on the nonlinear assumption. This analysis fills these gaps by examining the nonlinear impacts of trade policy uncertainty on eco-innovations in China and the USA over 2000Q1-2021Q4 by employing a nonlinear ARDL model. The finding reveals that a positive shock in trade policy uncertainty results in a decrease in green innovation in the USA and China, while a negative shock in trade policy uncertainty leads to an increase in green innovation in the USA over the long run. The nonlinear models also indicate that a positive shock in trade policy uncertainty harms green innovation in both the USA and China in the short run. The robustness of these results is confirmed by the NQARDL model, which confirms that an upsurge in trade policy uncertainty lowers green innovation in most quantiles in the USA and China in the short and long run. Conversely, negative shocks in trade policy uncertainty stimulate green innovation at most quantiles in both China and the USA, in the short and long run. Thus, policymakers need to consider the potential impact of trade policies on eco-innovations and work to create stable and predictable trade environments that support the growth of renewable technologies and other sustainable solutions.

Urbanization, industrialization and SO2 emissions in China: does the innovation ability of cities matter for air quality?

This paper aims to detail the relationships between urbanization, industrialization, the innovation ability of cities and local air quality in 284 cities in China using annual data. For the empirical outputs, the panel quantile regression analysis, which considers the heterogeneous nature of the data set, is employed. Initial findings indicate that (i) urbanization and industrialization negatively affect local air quality. (ii) Innovation capability of cities has a direct and improving impact on local air quality. Then, the paper estimates the moderating role of cities' ability to innovate in the polluting effect of urbanization and industrialization on local air quality. Remarkably, empirical evidence indicates that (iii) the innovation ability of cities also moderates the polluting impact of urbanization and industrialization on local air pollution. Based on the findings, the paper confirms the importance of both direct and moderator effects of the innovative environment in cities in tackling air pollution.

How do energy technology innovation, financial inclusion, and digital trade help to achieve carbon neutrality targets?

The ultimate goal of carbon neutrality objectives is to bring greenhouse gas emissions down to a point where they are no longer a factor in escalating climate change and global warming. Adopting sustainable habits, technologies, and investments may be facilitated and accelerated by energy technology innovation, digitalization trade, and financial inclusion, which can substantially influence reaching carbon neutrality objectives. However, none of the past studies have examined the role of energy technology innovation, financial inclusion, and digital trade on the carbon neutrality targets in top polluted economies. To fill this vacuum, this study aims to investigate the effect of energy technology innovation, financial inclusion, and digital trade on carbon neutrality in the top 40 polluted economies across Asia, America, and Europe from 2004-2021. Two renowned econometric techniques are used for empirical analysis, including Two Stage Least Square (2SLS) and Generalized Method of Moments (GMM). The estimates of energy innovation, ICT trade, digital financial inclusion, foreign direct investment, and research and development spending highlight the adverse influence on carbon emissions in global, Asian, American, and European samples. Conversely, the per capita income and foreign direct investment cause carbon emissions to increase in Asia, America, and Europe. Thus, policy experts in top polluted economies should target an integrated policy with a central focus on energy innovation, digital trade, and financial inclusiveness to achieve carbon neutrality.

Green growth as a determinant of ecological footprint: Do ICT diffusion, environmental innovation, and natural resources matter?

The nexus between green growth and ecological footprint is associated with crucial environmental implications. But this domain is not examined sufficiently and provides ambiguous findings. Furthermore, these studies have not addressed the role of natural resources, environmental innovation, and ICT in influencing ecological footprint. Our study analyzes the impact of green growth, ICT, environmental innovation, and natural resources on the ecological footprint ofemerging-7 and developed-7 economies. We employed CS-ARDL methodology to draw the long-run and short-run estimates of the said relationships. The obtained findings show that green growth, ICT, and environmental innovation reduce the ecological footprint in emerging economies in the long run. However, natural resources enhance the ecological footprint in emerging economies in the long run. Green growth, ICT, natural resources, and environmental innovation reduce the ecological footprint in the long run in developed economies. Based on these outcomes, the study recommends important policy suggestions.

How sustainable environment is influenced by the foreign direct investment, financial development, economic growth, globalization, innovation, and urbanization in China

This study aims to investigate the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow, financial development, economic growth, globalization, innovation, and urbanization on the carbon dioxide emissions in China by using long-ran time series dataset from 1970 to 2021 which for the first time used the newly developed dynamic autoregressive distributed lags (ARDL) simulation model for results analysis. Dynamic ARDL simulation model removes the shortcomings of the traditional ARDL models by predicting the actual change (positive and negative shocks) in the independent variables and its impact on the main dependent variables by 5000 simulations through graphical representation. The findings of the long-run dynamic ARDL simulations indicate that FDI inflow, globalization, and innovation negatively and significantly impact the environmental degradation while financial development, economic growth, and urbanization cause to increase the environmental degradation in China. Recommendations are suggested based on the findings of this study.

Energy productivity and environmental deregulation: the case of Greece

Among the EU countries, Greece relies heavily on coal the most, and it has lagged behind in cutting emissions. Further, following the oil crisis of the 1970s, Greece has strategically invested in lignite. Solid fossil fuels such as lignite are classified as fossil fuels that are detrimental to environmental performance. This continued burning of fossil fuels has emerged as one of the most serious concerns in Greece, even globally. The aim is to capture the effect of energy productivity on carbon dioxide emissions (CO₂E) in Greece while controlling trade openness, energy consumption, and economic growth. Toward this end, we employ a nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model and other econometric robust techniques. The findings of the study are as follows: (i) trade openness positively impacts carbon emissions growth; (ii) economic growth adds to increased CO₂E; (iii) expanding energy productivity is beneficial to the environment as it causes CO₂E to decline; and (iv) increase in energy consumptions further results in CO₂ cutbacks. The recommendation of our study suggests some innovative policies to counter the detrimental effects of carbon emissions by an increase in energy efficiency for the Greek economy. The study recommends that embracing a low-carbon, resource-efficient, and circular economy is of paramount importance to Greece in order to ensure environmental protection, as well as to boost green growth, create new jobs, and combat unemployment. Greece should ensure that energy efficiency techniques are promoted, and renewable energy sources are expanded in order to increase the options for cleaner alternatives and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, thus preserving the environment.

Influence of green technology, green energy consumption, energy efficiency, trade, economic development and FDI on climate change in South Asia

Climate change policy has several potential risks. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of green technology development, green energy consumption, energy efficiency, foreign direct investment, economic growth, and trade (imports and exports) on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in South Asia from 1981 to 2018. We employed Breusch Pagan LM, bias-corrected scaled LM, and Pesaran CD as part of a series of techniques that can assist in resolving the problem of cross-sectional dependence. First and second generation unit root tests are used to assess the stationarity of the series, Pedroni and Kao tests are used to test co-integration. The long-term associations are examined using fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) and panel dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) for robustness. The results revealed that trade, growth rate, and exports significantly increase GHG emissions. This accepted the leakage phenomenon. The results also demonstrated that green technology development, green energy consumption, energy efficiency, and imports all have a significant negative correlation with GHG emissions. Imports, advanced technical processes, a transition from non-green energy to green energy consumption, and energy efficiency are thus critical components in executing climate change legislation. These findings highlight the profound importance of green technology development and green energy for ecologically sustainable development in the South Asian countries and act as a crucial resource for other nations throughout the world when it comes to ecological security. This research recommends the consumption of environmentally friendly and energy-efficient technologies in order to mitigate climate change and the government's implementation of the most recent policies to neutralize GHG emissions in order to achieve sustainable development.

Natural resources, population aging, and environmental quality: analyzing the role of green technologies

Depletion of natural resources and population aging are the two most critical challenges for environmental sustainability. However, the research that integrates natural resources and population aging in the same environmental policy framework is still scant. Therefore, this study investigates the linkage between natural resources, population aging, green technologies, and ecological footprint (EF) of G7 countries. In addition, this study also explores the moderating effects of green technologies on the relationship between natural resources and EF. Drawing on the panel times series data from 1970 to 2017, we employ a cross-sectional autoregressive distributed lags (CS-ARDL) model for short- and long-run empirical estimation. Our empirical analysis indicates that natural resource use exacerbates ecological degradation by increasing EF. By contrast, population aging and green technologies present positive ameliorative effects on EF. Interestingly, the interaction effect of green technologies and natural resources indicates that the damage to ecological quality from natural resources can be effectively improved by means of green technologies, thus maintaining environmental sustainability. Furthermore, the results of panel quantile regression show that the effects of population aging and green technologies on the overall ecological footprint distribution in G7 countries are heterogeneous, while the effects of natural resources on the distribution of all conditions of the ecological footprint are positive. In addition, this paper verifies the causal relationship between the variables using the Dumitrescu and Hurlin test. The findings reveal that the relevant changes in all explanatory variables are bilaterally causally associated with EF. Based on these results, this paper provides some feasible policy recommendations.

Income inequality, ecological footprint, and carbon dioxide emissions in Asian developing economies: what effects what and how?

The reduction of income inequality and environmental vulnerability is the most important factor, through which we can achieve the target of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The past papers have investigated the nexus between income inequality and carbon emissions; however, the relationship between income inequality and carbon emissions along with ecological footprint has not been studied in the case of developing countries. To this end, this study analyzed the impact of income inequality on both carbon emissions and ecological footprint as well as the impact of carbon emission and ecological footprint on income inequality by using the dataset from 2006 to 2017 for the 18 Asian developing economies. This study confirmed the positive relationship between carbon emissions, ecological footprint, and income inequality under the methodology of Driscoll and Kraay (D&K) standard error approach. Specifically, a higher-income gap is destructive for environmental degradation, whereas increasing level of carbon emissions and ecological footprint also leads to rising income inequality in the investigated region. Furthermore, foreign direct investment (FDI), easy access to electricity, and population growth control income inequality, but they have a detrimental effect on both ecological footprint and carbon emissions. The empirical findings also provide some important policy implications.

Bibliometric analysis of immigration and environmental degradation: evidence from past decades

The aim of this paper is to examine immigration and environmental degradation using bibliometric analysis. This paper also analyzes sources of publication, authorship, citations, distributions publications and other bibliometric indicators. The study focuses on a total of 1372 articles published from 2000 to 2020. These articles were collected through an automated process from the Scopus database and later analyzed using techniques such as bibliometric indicators analysis, VOSviewer, and Perish or Publish. The research identified 991 articles from varieties of published sources. The topic of immigrants and environmental degradation has been an emerging topic since 1981. Starting in 2000, most of the scholars actively producing an articles pertinent to this topic. Most of the articles were published in journals, and English is the primary language of research. United States is the leading country in contributing the publications. Meanwhile, the most significant fields in which the sources were produced were environmental science, agricultural and biological sciences, arts and humanities and earth and planetary sciences. However, some limitations has been found. It has been suggested for future research, to lengthen this work to other databases, as well as bibliometric analyses of immigration and environmental degradation in developed and developing countries by adding a new keyword such as energy consumption and climate change. This paper aims to assess recent trends in the expansion of academic literature on immigration and environmental degradation using the bibliometric analysis method. Network visualization and bibliometric indicators are used in this paper to present the results.

The asymmetric effect eco-innovation and tourism towards carbon neutrality target in Turkey

After the Paris Climate Conference (Conference of the Paris COP21), emerging countries also start progressing as the world has shown serious concern towards carbon neutrality targets. In doing this, the tourism and hospitality businesses have also emerged as an industry that has shown tremendous economic positive outputs and support to an economy with the lease inputs. However, tourism has also been reported to lead to increased environmental degradation as foreigners came to the host country, whereby ecological innovation emerged as a potential solution for eliminating the level of carbon emissions. In contrast, researchers are in agreement in terms of its beneficial relationship. Therefore, based on Turkey as the contextual gap and the application of quantile autoregressive distributed lag (QARDL) as the methodological contribution, the present study explores the relationship of tourism and ecological innovation within the framework of Environment Kuznets Curve (EKC) on the environment using two different proxies (carbon emissions and ecological footprint) spanning from 1995 to 2018. The results confirm the EKC curve whereby the parameter estimating tourism and ecological innovation on carbon emissions and ecological footprint, both of the integrations are found negative and statistically significant across most quantiles. Based on the findings, the study is accordingly concluded, followed by the managerial implications.

Improving Firm's Economic and Environmental Performance Through the Sustainable and Innovative Environment: Evidence From an Emerging Economy

Businesses in the present era are dealing with a complex and unprecedented brew of social, environmental, and technological trends. This requires sophisticated, sustainability-based management. Yet organizations are often reluctant to place sustainability core to their business strategies with the mistaken belief that the costs associated with environmental investments outweigh the benefits. The Global Climate Risk Index has placed Pakistan on 5th position in the list of nations, most susceptible to climate change in its recent report. Pakistan lost the lives of 9,989 people, incurred economic losses of $ 3.8 billion, and faced 152 shocking climates between 1999 and 2018. Based on this information, it is established that Pakistan's susceptibility to climate change is growing unprecedentedly and industrial pollution is one of the biggest contributors in this respect. The country needs to take emergency measures to address this issue. With this background, the present study aims to investigate the impact of environmental sustainability on environmental and economic performance (EP) with the mediating effect of environmental innovation (EI) in the manufacturing sector of Pakistan. The results show that environmental sustainability is a significant predictor of environmental performance and EP and EI mediates this relationship. The findings of the present study provide better insights to policymakers to address the environmental degradation, resulting from industrial pollution.

The effects of renewable and nonrenewable energy consumption on the ecological footprint: the role of environmental policy in BRICS countries

This study aims to investigate the impact of economic growth, renewable energy consumption, nonrenewable energy consumption, industrialization, and environmental policy stringency on the ecological footprint in the BRICS countries over the period of 1995-2016. Series of the advanced econometric method, such as the novel dynamic seemingly unrelated regression (DSUR) method and the Dumitrescu and Hurlin panel causality tests, are employed for scrutinizing the estimations of the long-run and causal relationships among variables. The results suggested that the economic growth, renewable energy consumption, nonrenewable energy consumption, and industry have a positive relationship to the ecological footprint, while environmental policy stringency has been described in the BRICS countries as having a negative relationship with the ecological footprint. In addition, the bidirectional relationship is found between (i) the ecological footprint and economic growth and (ii) the ecological footprint and renewable energy consumption.

Econometrics of Anthropogenic Emissions, Green Energy-Based Innovations, and Energy Intensity across OECD Countries

The increasing global attention on climate change underscores the importance of alternative energy technologies with emission reduction effects. However, there are several caveats of economic productivity and environmental sustainability tradeoffs that require empirical consideration—owing to long-term effects on climate change. Here, we examine the relationship between emissions, green energy-based innovations, and energy research and development across energy-intensive OECD countries while accounting for industrial structure dynamics. We utilize several novel time series and panel estimation techniques including time-varying causality, defactored instrumental variable-based homogeneous, and heterogeneous slope dynamics that control for unobserved common factors. Our empirical assessment emphasizes the significance of energy research and development in expanding green energy innovations while reducing long-term emissions. Conversely, continual dependence on obsolete energy research and development may worsen environmental sustainability. However, the inclusion of green energy technologies offset environmental pollution without compromising economic productivity. Besides, the mitigation effect of energy research and development is channeled through a decline in energy intensity and technological advancement. We show that green energy-based innovations and energy research and development play a critical role in achieving environmental sustainability in OECD countries.

Innovation and environmental total factor productivity in China: the moderating roles of economic policy uncertainty and marketization process

China's economic development practices are facing strict energy constraints and severe environmental pollution. Improvement of China's environmental total factor productivity (ETFP) through innovation is a major scientific focus of both policy-makers and academia. However, the boundary conditions where innovation affects ETFP are yet to be clarified. On this basis, the present study starts from two dimensions-policy context and market context, introduces economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and marketization process as moderating variables, and examines the impact mechanism of innovation on ETFP. The results show the following: (1) Innovation promotes ETFP. (2) Although EPU inhibits ETFP, it positively moderates the impact of innovation on ETFP. (3) The marketization process has an insignificant inhibitory effect on ETFP. Specifically, the development of product markets, the development of market intermediary organizations, and the legal system environment have a significant inhibitory effect on ETFP. In contrast, the marketization process positively moderates the impact of innovation on ETFP. (4) The impact of innovation on ETFP exhibits obvious regional heterogeneity. In regions with low pollution intensity, innovation and EPU promotes ETFP. The marketization process inhibits ETFP and shows a positive moderating effect. In regions with high pollution intensity, both innovation and EPU inhibits ETFP. Based on these conclusions, policy-makers should guide companies to increase investment in research and development, improve innovation capabilities, and focus on strengthening energy-saving and environmental protection technologies and process innovations. When formulating and adjusting economic policies, policy-makers should aim promote enterprise innovation and reduce the negative impact of economic policy uncertainty. Policies should fully utilize the decisive role of the market in the allocation of innovative factors and rely on market mechanisms to enhance the positive effect of innovation on regional ETFP.

An empirical nexus between economic growth, energy utilization, trade policy, and ecological footprint: a continent-wise comparison in upper-middle-income countries

This study investigates the causal connection between economic growth, foreign direct investment, primary and renewable energy utilization, trade openness, and ecological footprint for 33 upper-middle-income countries (UMICs) from Africa, Asia, Europe, and America during the period from 1994 to 2017. Initially, first- as well as second-generation panel unit root tests are applied to check the integration order after confirming the cross-sectional dependency and heterogeneity. Four different tests (FMOLS, DOLS, FGLS, and AMG) are applied to estimate the long-run elasticity, whereas Dumitrescu and Hurlin (D-H) non-causality test is used to test growth, conservation, and feedback hypothesis. Results show negative relationship of economic growth on ecological footprint in Africa and Europe; renewable energy utilization in Asia, Europe, and America; and trade openness in Asia. Moreover, the results revealed an adverse impact of trade openness on ecological footprint in case of Africa and America. Furthermore, the results of D-H panel non-causality test confirm the growth hypothesis for economic growth to ecological footprint in Africa, Asia, and Europe; foreign direct investment to ecological footprint in Africa and Asia; primary energy utilization to ecological footprint in Asia; renewable energy utilization to ecological footprint in America; and trade openness to ecological footprint in Africa, Asia, and America. Furthermore, the feedback hypothesis was confirmed between economic growth and ecological footprint in Asia and Europe; foreign direct investment and ecological footprint in Africa and Asia; renewable energy utilization and ecological footprint for America; and trade openness and ecological footprint for Asia and America. Finally, in context to efficient policy implications, it is suggested to associate the economic growth with clean energy and environment-friendly technologies by expanding the share of renewable energy in America and economic growth in Africa and Europe. Furthermore, Asian policy makers need to focus on foreign direct investment and trade openness by using green energy to overcome the environmental degradation. Impulsion with these findings, the central authorities of UMICs need to focus on more investments in environmental quality not only through foreign direct investment but also exchanging their clean energy technologies through trade policies such as tax exemption, feed-in tariffs, and subsidies. Government of these countries ought to upgrade the conventional capital which will ultimately improve the human lives by providing clean environment.

A study of environmental regulation, technological innovation, and energy consumption in China based on spatial econometric models and panel threshold models

Under different technological innovation modes, regional energy consumption may have spatial heterogeneity. Spatial heterogeneity complicates the nexus between environmental regulation and energy consumption. Traditional spatial homogeneity analysis is hard to describe the nonlinear nexus between them. Based on the data of 30 provinces in China from 2007 to 2017, this paper employs the spatial econometric method and the nonlinear econometric method to investigate the spatial effects and nonlinearity of energy consumption, respectively. The results display that under the current level of economic development, per capita energy consumption has a significant spatial spillover effect. Environmental regulation promotes regional per capita energy consumption in the short term. On the contrary, the technological effect of environmental regulation has significantly reduced Chinese per capita energy consumption. Therefore, energy policy should be tailored to local conditions, and policymakers can strengthen the environmental regulatory system and encourage enterprises to implement green technology innovation.

A spatial analysis of corruption, misallocation, and efficiency

Political corruption is considered one of the major obstacles to achieving high-quality economic development in developed and developing countries. This study first calculates the ecological footprints of 29 provinces in China based on China's provincial panel data from 2006 to 2015. The provinces' ecological efficiencies were then calculated. The relationship between government corruption and ecological efficiency is researched, and the result shows that such a relationship is not linear. At different levels of ecological efficiency, government corruption has different effects on ecological efficiency. Finally, the resource misallocation index is introduced, and the spatial error model is used to further test the impact of government corruption and resource misallocation on ecological efficiency. The regression results show that high levels of government corruption and resource allocation distortion will cause a decrease in regional ecological efficiency, which adversely affects the sustainable development of the economy.

The role of ecological footprint and the changes in degree days on environmental sustainability in the USA

In addition to the adverse effect of extreme weather and weather variation across the globe, the ecological deficit accounting associated with the USA is perceived to have further worsen the country's environmental quality. Considering the aforementioned motivation, this study examined the effects of cooling degree days, heating degree days and ecological footprint on environmental degradation in the USA over the period of 1960 to 2016. While employing the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and Bounds testing to cointegration approaches, the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is further incorporated in the estimation model to avoid estimation bias thus enhancing a robust estimate. The result overwhelmingly found that the cooling degree days, the heating degree days and the ecological footprint accounting aggravates the country's environmental degradation. Worse still, the study further presents that there is short-run adverse impacts of the heating and cooling degree days, and the short-run and long-run ecological footprint on the country's environmental sustainability. Moreover, there is statistical evidence that the income growth in the USA especially in the long run will not also improve the environmental quality. Irrespective of the income-environmental degradation long-run relationship, the relieving impact of income growth on environmental degradation is observed in the short run. In general, the study presents relevant policy pathway for implementation.