What factors contribute to environmental degradation in G11 economies? Emphasizing the importance of renewable and non-renewable energy sources

ABSTRACT

This study explored the dynamic nexus between trade openness, non-renewable, renewable-energy consumption, urbanization, economic growth, and ecological footprint considering the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 7 and 13 of ensuring access to reliable, renewable, and clean energy technology, as well as climate action, by employing a second-generation panel data technique for G11 economies from 1991 to 2018. The study used second-generation panel unit root tests, panel cointegration techniques, and the augmented mean group (AMG) approach to estimate the long-run magnitude of the parameters for this purpose. The empirical findings show that trade openness, economic growth, and urbanization all considerably increase the environmental deficit, but renewable energy use minimizes total environmental degradation in the long run. Furthermore, the Dumitrescu and Hurlin (D-H) causality test discovered that economic growth, non-renewable consumption, urbanization, and the EFP have long-term bidirectional correlation, whereas GDP, renewable energy consumption, and trade openness have long-term unidirectional causality. As a result, the industrial infrastructure of the G11 nations must be modernized, and renewable energy must be enhanced further.

KEYWORDS:

• Renewable energy consumption
• Non-renewable energy consumption
• Environmental degradation
• Ecological footprint
• Panel econometrics
• G11

Author’s Contribution

Dr. Nabila Amin: complete writing, data analysis, software working, econometric modelling, methodology, mathematical investigation. Dr. Muhammad Salman Shabbir proof reading and references verification. Professor Huaming Song: Supervision, Conceptualization.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability

All the data is obtained through an online database system; the links are mentioned in the references section.

Additional information

Funding

The authors have no funding to report.