Green Technological Development and Deployment in the Association of Southeast Asian Economies (ASEAN)—At Crossroads or Roundabout?

Studying financial development with low-carbon architecture development and green technological innovation: sustaining SDG-9

In order to accomplish Sustainable Growth Goal 9, this research analyzes in detail how green technological innovation, low-carbon architectural improvement, and more significant financial growth all work together to reach the goal. This research meticulously integrates secondary data from reputable sources to examine the relationship between economic growth, technological innovation in the built environment, and environmental sustainability from 1994 to 2019. For economic insights, the World Bank's World Development Indicators is a go-to resource, while Yale University's Environmental Performance Index (EPI) is a go-to for environmental metrics. Our research is based on this synthesis of multi-dimensional data, which enables an in-depth investigation of the interplay between financial development, sustainable architecture, and technical progress toward SDG-9. This research employs quantitative and qualitative methodologies to shed light on the intricate interaction between these elements, making it useful for policymakers, scholars, and stakeholders dedicated to directing sustainable development paths.

Exploring the impact of public investment on income, energy consumption, and CO2 emissions in ASEAN: new insights from a panel cointegration approach

Policy adjustments can help strike a balance between economic growth and environmental sustainability, which has increasingly been the heart to nations and regions throughout the World. This paper examines how public investment affects economic growth, energy consumption, and CO2 emissions in eight ASEAN countries: Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Extension of a Cobb-Douglas production function and application of panel cointegration techniques reveal bidirectional Granger causation between public investment and both private development and CO2 emissions from 1980 to 2019. Public investment Granger causes energy usage, the opposite does not hold statistically. More findings from pooled mean group estimations show a mean-reversion dynamic that corrects disequilibria by 14% yearly. State investment crowds in private sector growth, energy use, and carbon footprint. It also finds an inverted U-shaped relationship between public investment and energy consumption, and a U-shaped relationship between public investment and CO2 emissions, indicating complex regional interactions. It is suggested the implementation of public investment policies that enrich green infrastructure projects to foster growth while minimizing environmental impacts, and encourage a strategic approach to public investment for prioritizing environmental sustainability and thus, achieving Sustainable Development Goals 7 to 9 and 11 to 13 in this region.

Does digital economy development matter? Role of supply chain management and CO2 emissions in BRICS

Large risks and opportunities arise for production operations as a result of international governmental initiatives to limit carbon emissions. In instance, high-emitting manufacturing processes may be a reflection of productive inefficiencies and the uncertainty of the prices of carbon dioxide emissions. Recently, there has been a lot of attention paid to the topic of ecologically responsible supply chain management. Therefore, participants in the supply chain have worked together to create effective contracts, often known as green supply chain management contracts. In order to demonstrate the key role of financial efficiency, environmental sustainability, and supply chain management in sustainable growth and digital technology development, this study considers the data for BRICS economies over the period of 2008-2022. However, under the supply chain management, this study considers the innovation efficiency, input, and output to evaluate the external determinants. However, this study employs the OLS, 2SLS, and AMG estimator to demonstrate the robust and reliable outcomes for selected economies. In compile words, this study divides empirical scheme into two different explained variables such as sustainable growth and development of digital technologies. However, to show empirical scheme very catchy, the present study uses the simultaneous equation models. Therefore, all selected indicators of sustainable growth contribute to economic growth efficiently except the foreign direct investment. Besides for the digital technology development, all factors significantly contribute to digital technologies except the carbon emissions and foreign direct investment. Additional robust tests confirm the consistency and stability of the findings reached in this research. Thus, to improve economic performance, digital economy development, and sustainability, authorities in BRICS areas should develop strategies that enhance digital economy development under the green supply chain management.

Examining the role of ICT, transportation energy consumption, and urbanization in CO2 emissions in Asia: a threshold analysis

ICT is viewed in earlier research as a double-edged sword that may either help or hurt the environment. Asian nations' ICT penetration has significantly expanded in recent years, and they are eager to bring about a digital revolution by building up their ICT infrastructure while consuming less energy for transportation and urban growth. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to investigate how ICT might reduce CO₂ emissions through the use of transport energy and urban development. Empirical and theoretical debates have been remaining ambiguous and contentious topic of whether energy consumed by the transport sector and urbanization causes CO₂ emanation in Asia, and what role ICT played in determining the level of CO₂ remains unanswered. This study adds to the ongoing discussion for sustainable transportation in ten Asian nations for 30 years that concentrate on the relationship between the energy consumption of transport, urbanization, ICT, and carbon emanation (1990-2020) and checked the validity of EKC. The STIRPAT and panel threshold models having two regimes are used to explore the stochastic impacts of the dependent and explanatory variables. We have divided explanatory into two categories, that is, the threshold variable ICT and the regime-dependent variables urbanization and transport energy consumption. Our results confirm that the EKC hypothesis holds in these Asian economies. Thus, our findings indicate that the environmental quality improves in terms of reduction in CO₂ emissions when ICT passes the threshold level due to the technological advancement in ICT dominating the scale effect induced by ICT. Furthermore, the possible policy recommendations are discussed according to the findings.

The role of trade liberalization in promoting regional integration and sustainability: The case of regional comprehensive economic partnership

In globalization’s era, the sustainability of a region is inseparable from the in-depth and close economic and trade cooperation of intra-regional countries to achieve complementary advantages, intra-regional and extra-regional positive economic cycles, and stable and balanced benefits distribution. For Asia-Pacific countries, the lack of deep cooperation in the past has affected their sustainability, but this can be made up for by the RCEP agreement aimed at achieving intra-regional trade liberalization. We adopt the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) simulation analysis method to quantitatively analyze the impact of changes in macroeconomic and international trade indicators of several intra-regional countries after implementing the RCEP tariff reduction and exemption on the RCEP. Simulation results and comparative analysis based on international relations prove that despite the interference of trade benefits conflicts and international political factors, the RCEP can still exist in long term, and effectively promote regional economic integration and sustainability in the Asia-Pacific region. It is also a development opportunity for intra-regional countries and can also be used in the context of globalization providing references for integration and sustainability in other regions.

Controlling air pollution by lowering methane emissions, conserving natural resources, and slowing urbanization in a panel of selected Asian economies

The destruction of the earth’s ecosystems is the most pressing issue globally. Carbon emissions account for nearly half of global air pollution. Methane is the primary source of ground-level ozone and a significant source of greenhouse gases (GHGs), with greater warming potential than carbon dioxide emissions. The study examines the impact of the different methane emissions (released by agriculture, energy, and industrial sectors), urbanization, natural resource depletion, and livestock production on carbon emissions in the panel of selected Asian countries for the period of 1971 to 2020. The results show that energy associated methane emissions, livestock production, natural resource depletion, and urbanization are the main detrimental factors of environmental degradation across countries. The causality estimates show the unidirectional relationship running from livestock production and agriculture methane emissions to carbon emissions, from total methane emissions and carbon emissions to urbanization and from urbanization to energy methane emissions and livestock production. The forecasting estimates suggest that total methane emissions, natural resource depletion, and urbanization will likely increase carbon emissions over the next ten years. The study concludes that the energy sector should adopt renewable energy sources in its production process to minimize carbon emissions. Urbanization and excessive resource exploitation must be curtailed to attain carbon neutrality.

Using Natural Gas Resources to De-Risk Renewable Energy Investments in Lower-Income Countries

Combatting climate change necessitates a substantial global increase in renewable electricity capacity. Many low-income and lower-middle-income countries suffer from unfavorable green financing conditions. Fifteen of these countries possess substantial natural gas reserves. To overcome green financing constraints in such countries, we propose an integrated energy contract that awards a renewable energy project in parallel with an upstream natural gas project to interested energy companies. The state returns from the natural gas project provide a guarantee for renewable energy investments, reducing their associated risks. We conduct Monte Carlo simulations for each of the targeted countries after populating the input parameters for the upstream natural gas and renewable energy projects, including forecasting country-specific natural gas prices. When accounting for 10% of their existing natural gas reserves in the proposed contract, Nigeria, Myanmar, and Indonesia can achieve more than 60% of their 2030 renewable energy target capacity additions while countries with low access to electricity can significantly upscale their installed capacities. The guarantee mechanism provides protection levels exceeding 96% on renewable energy investments. The proposed contract enables the considered countries to increase their renewable energy capacities while inducing economic development.

Plant microbial fuel cell: Opportunities, challenges, and prospects

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are considered as greener technologies for generation of bioenergy and simultaneously treatment of wastewater. However, the major drawback of these technologies was, rapid utilization of substrate by the microbes to generate power. This drawback is solved to a great extent by plant microbial fuel cell (PMFC) technology. Therefore, this review critically explored the challenges associated with PMFC technology and approaches to be employed for making it commercially feasible, started with brief introduction of MFCs, and PMFCs. This review also covered various factors like light intensity, carbon dioxide concentration in air, type of plant used, microbial flora in rhizosphere and also electrode material used which influence the efficiency of PMFC. Finally, this review comprehensively revealed the possibility of future intervention, such as application of biochar and preferable plants species which improve the performance of PMFC along with their opportunities challenges and prospects.

ASEAN’s Energy Transition towards Cleaner Energy System: Energy Modelling Scenarios and Policy Implications

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) faces tremendous challenges regarding the future energy landscape and how the energy transition will embrace a new architecture—including sound policies and technologies to ensure energy access together with affordability, energy security, and energy sustainability. Given the high share of fossil fuels in ASEAN’s current energy mix (oil, coal, and natural gas comprise almost 80%), the clean use of fossil fuels through the deployment of clean technologies is indispensable for decarbonizing ASEAN’s emissions. The future energy landscape of ASEAN will rely on today’s actions, policies, and investments to change the fossil fuel-based energy system towards a cleaner energy system, but any decisions and energy policy measures to be rolled out during the energy transition need to be weighed against potentially higher energy costs, affordability issues, and energy security risks. This paper employs energy modelling scenarios to seek plausible policy options for ASEAN to achieve more emissions reductions as well as energy savings, and to assess the extent to which the composition of the energy mix will be changed under various energy policy scenarios. The results imply policy recommendations for accelerating the share of renewables, adopting clean technologies and the clean use of fossil fuels, and investing in climate-resilient energy quality infrastructure.