Renewable energy, economic development, and ecological footprint nexus: fresh evidence of renewable energy environment Kuznets curve (RKC) from income groups

This study aims to measure the association of real economic growth per capita, renewable energy consumption, and financial development with ecological footprints (EFP) across the 155 countries of four different income groups over the period of 1990–2017. For the analysis, the unit root tests allowin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental science and pollution research international 2021, Vol.28 (2), p.2031-2051
Main Authors: Naqvi, Syed Asif Ali, Shah, Syed Ale Raza, Anwar, Sofia, Raza, Hassan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aquatic Pollution
Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution
Biomass energy production
Carbon Dioxide
Cross-Sectional Studies
Damage prevention
Decision making
Dependent variables
Earth and Environmental Science
Ecological footprint
Economic Development
Economic growth
Ecotoxicology
Empirical analysis
Energy
Energy consumption
Environment
Environmental Chemistry
Environmental Health
Environmental impact
Environmental Kuznets curve
Environmental science
Footprint analysis
High income
Income
Low income groups
Renewable Energy
Renewable resources
Research Article
Time series
Waste Water Technology
Water Management
Water Pollution Control
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Summary:This study aims to measure the association of real economic growth per capita, renewable energy consumption, and financial development with ecological footprints (EFP) across the 155 countries of four different income groups over the period of 1990–2017. For the analysis, the unit root tests allowing cross-sectional dependency, Westerlund cointegration test, common correlated effect of mean group, augmented mean group, mean group, and Dumitrescu–Hurlin panel causality test are used. The results verify both the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) and renewable energy environment Kuznets curve (RKC) hypotheses in the high-income group; however, other groups have not shown reliable results. Moreover, it is observed that the existence of RKC is a turning point for high-income countries, and it takes place before the turning point of the forthcoming EKC. Besides, empirical outcomes endorse the presence of long-run equilibrium and indicate that financial development has a negative and significant effect on the EFP in the case of the high-income group. In contrast, upper–middle– and lower–middle–income groups show the insignificant relationship with the dependent variable. Likewise, financial development has a positive and significant association with EFP for the low-income group. Conversely, biomass energy has a negative relationship with EFP in high- and lower–middle–income groups, while a positive association has been observed for the remaining two groups. We suppose that the study outcomes would guide the policymakers in decision-making regarding the development and usage of renewable energy to prevent environmental damages.
ISSN:0944-1344
1614-7499
DOI:10.1007/s11356-020-10485-w