This study investigates the impact of globalization, financial development, and energy utilization on environmental sustainability in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. GCC countries are currently experiencing higher demand and utilization of energy resources, high global integration, and improvements in the financial sector that poses serious environmental sustainability challenges. We have employed a relatively comprehensive proxy, i.e., ecological footprint for environmental sustainability and more advanced and robust econometric strategies (second-generation) to examine the impact of globalization, financial development, and energy utilization on environmental sustainability in the GCC countries, which have a significant departure from the extant literature. The results of this study show that globalization, financial development, and energy utilization are significantly deteriorating the environmental quality in the GCC countries. Additionally, in order to account for the national heterogeneity, we have performed country-specific analysis and interestingly, results reveal that globalization, financial development, and energy utilization negatively influence the environmental sustainability in each sample country that is consistent with the findings of overall panel. Furthermore, the findings are robust to various robustness checks that we have performed for checking the reliability of our main findings. This study also offers some useful policy implications to the stakeholder in general and specifically concerning the GCC countries for promoting their environmental sustainability.

This study examines the effects of energy use, financial development, and globalization on carbon dioxide emissions for Asian countries comprising the panel data over the period 1990–2017. To account for cross-sectional dependence, Pesaran cross-sectional dependence test is used. The second-generation tests are used to determine the stationarity level of the variables. Furthermore, the Westerlund panel cointegration test confirms cointegration among the variables. For long-run association, fully modified ordinary least squares approach is used. The study also used Dumitrescu and Hurlin’s (Econ Model 29:1450-1460, 2012) panel causality test to explore the causal relationship among the variables. The results suggest that financial development contributes to carbon emissions, whereas globalization helps to mitigate emissions. As financial development deteriorates environmental quality, therefore, the government should monitor the disbursement of loans for research and development, green financing, and efficient products that reduce resource consumption and improves environmental quality. Financial development should not compromise environmental quality and endanger sustainability. Such findings show that both renewable energy industries and financial development in the Asian economies are not meeting the maturity level in terms of leading to changes in environmental quality. Furthermore, Asian countries should promote globalization to support the inflow of green technologies to enhance environmental quality.

This study utilized the Pooled Mean Group estimator to investigate the effect of renewable energy consumption, electricity consumption, economic growth, institutional quality, and globalization on carbon dioxide emission with an updated dataset for 10 economies for the time period from 1985 to 2018. Results of Harris-Tzavalis’s test and Levin–Lin–Chu’s test show that the utilized regressand and regressors are stationary at I(0) and I(I) that conform that the pooled mean group estimator panel ARDL can be utilized. Results of Kao and Pedroni cointegration tests show that cointegration exists amongst the variables. Empirical results of pooled mean group (PMG) revealed that renewable energy consumption helps to diminish the environmental degradation while foreign direct investment, electricity consumption, and economic growth and institutional quality positively affect the degradation of the environment. The findings show that globalization in the long run adversely and significantly influences the environmental degradation; globalization reduces the environmental degradation in the long run while in the short run, globalization positively and significantly influences the environmental degradation. Results of the panel VAR and VECM model indicate electricity consumption and institutional quality, and globalization positively affects environmental degradation. Further policies are recommended based on the findings.

The world is increasingly getting urbanized and globalized, and the increase in natural resource exploration could have a far-reaching impact on environmental quality. Since most Latin American and Caribbean countries (LACCs) have proximity to the Amazon, they, therefore, rely heavily on agriculture and mining which develop via deforestation which could exacerbate the already increasing carbon dioxide emissions (CO₂ emissions). Therefore, to the best of our knowledge, this study becomes the first to investigate the link between natural resources, globalization, urbanization, and environmental degradation in LACCs countries from 1990 to 2017 with advanced panel data econometric techniques. The unit root tests affirm all the variables to be stationary at first difference, and the Westerlund (Oxf Bull Econ Stat 69(6):709–748, 2007) cointegration test confirms the long-run relationship among the variables. The augmented mean group (AMG) and the common correlated effects mean group (CCEMG) results affirm that the aforementioned variables add to CO₂ emissions, while human capital mitigates it. Further findings reveal that human capital performs a moderating role in promoting urbanization sustainability. The country-specific results confirm that economic growth adds to emissions in all the countries, except in the Dominican Republic. A feedback causality exists between economic growth, globalization, urbanization, and CO₂ emissions. This study argues for the development of human capital, a gradual transition to sustainable growth-driven and knowledge-based industries, and the introduction of sustainability practices in the natural resource sector to mitigate CO₂ emissions in LACCs.

This study for the first time examined the link of foreign direct investment inflow, globalization, energy consumption, economic growth, export of fuel resources, and export of ore and metal resources with carbon dioxide emission in 170 countries around the world by using panel data from 1990 to 2018. The examined results of GMM and fixed effect model show that greenhouse gas emissions reduce due to exports of natural resources, export of fuel resources and export of ore and metal resources, urbanization, economic globalization, and political globalization, but the use of energy, social globalization, foreign direct investment, and economic growth have boosted the carbon dioxide emissions. This study suggests that policy makers should focus to implement environment-friendly equipment to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Bangladesh’s recent doorway to the spectacular growth trajectory is largely associated with the shared contributions of globalization, FDI, trade, economic growth, urbanization, energy consumption, innovation, and institutional quality that affect its natural environment. Earlier studies hardly incorporated these dynamics together especially innovation and institutional quality to examine their impacts on environmental degradation in Bangladesh. This study attempts to scrutinize the effect of globalization, foreign direct investment, economic growth, trade, innovation, urbanization, and energy consumption on CO₂ emissions in the presence of institutional quality in Bangladesh over the period 1972–2016 by utilizing dynamic ARDL simulations’ model by Jordan and Philips (2018). The investigated results depict that globalization; foreign direct investment, and innovation have a negative effect on CO₂ emissions in improving environmental quality while economic growth, trade, energy consumption, and urbanization positively impact CO₂ emissions and hence stimulate environmental degradation both in the long and short run. Besides, institutional quality measured by the political terror scale (PTS) affects CO₂ emissions positively and thereby degrades the quality of the environment in both the long and short run. Therefore, policy implication should go toward encouraging globalization, foreign direct investment and innovation; and the sensible utilization of income growth, trade potentials, energy consumption, urbanization and institution is required for the sake of environmental quality in Bangladesh.

This study uncovers the role of regulatory quality, energy use, and globalization in the conventional environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) for South Africa by incorporating structural breaks in the series based on quarterly frequency data between 1996:Q1 and 2016:Q4. Applying the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, we confirm a cointegration between the variables. The empirical results suggest the validity of the EKC hypothesis in South Africa. In addition, while energy use exerts positive pressure on ecological footprint, globalization and regulatory quality exert negative pressure on ecological footprint. However, the effect of globalization is weak in the long run while the effect of regulatory quality is weak in short run. The results further reveal that the structural break years are statistically insignificant. The causality result establishes a causal link flowing from all the variables to ecological footprint in the long run. In the short run, economic growth and energy use Granger-cause regulatory quality. Also, while energy use causes ecological footprint, globalization is a predictor of energy use. The policy implication of this study is that increasing the pace of globalization and strengthening regulatory quality are efficient strategies to improve environmental quality and sustain a stable EKC in South Africa.

Globally, the rising concentration of anthropogenic greenhouse gases emission in the atmosphere is extremely detrimental to the environment. The high concentration among all greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide emission. Therefore, this study explores the linkages between energy consumption, trade openness, globalization, urbanization, and carbon dioxide emission for Malaysia over the spans from 1978 to 2018. ARDL bound testing model was employed to investigate involvement in the elevation of carbon dioxide emissions in the economy. The study illustrates that a 1% growth in energy consumption, trade openness, and urbanization will deteriorate the environment by 0.18%, 0.03%, and 2.51% respectively. Further, variance decomposition analysis predicts that all the determinants in the study have significantly caused carbon dioxide emission in Malaysia. The paper presents scientific support for further studies and argues for the use of innovation shocks as a policy instrument for a prosperous future by formulating more successful environmental policies.

The economic complexity index, which indicates the level of knowledge and skills needed in the production of the exported goods, is a measure of economic development. Some researchers have investigated the validity of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis by considering the effect of economic complexity on environmental pollution. This study, for the first time, examines the impact of economic complexity, globalization, and renewable and non-renewable energy consumption on both CO₂ emissions and ecological footprint within the framework of the EKC hypothesis in the USA. To this end, the combined cointegration test and three different estimators are utilized for the period from 1980 to 2016. The main finding of the study indicates that the inverted U-shaped EKC relationship between economic complexity and environmental pollution holds for the USA. In addition to this finding, globalization and renewable energy consumption play a dominant role in reducing environmental pollution, while non-renewable energy consumption contributing factor to environmental pressure. Overall, the outcomes indicate that increasing economic complexity helps to minimize environmental degradation after a threshold, and the US government can provide a better environment by using renewable energy sources and globalization. Graphical abstract

The policy debate on the financial development and dynamic of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission is topical. Globalization can affect this relationship by making financial investments in green energy and environment-friendly technology, as environmental sustainability is the primary concern for modern society. This study proposes a newly formulated conceptual framework to explore globalization’s moderating role on exoplanetary variables (financial development, energy consumption, human capital, and gross domestic product) and CO₂ emission. We employed Fixed Effect Ordinary Least Squares (FE-OLS), Driscoll–Kraay standard error approach (D–K), and Dumitrescu and Hurlin’s (2012) panel causality test. Our sample of the study comprised full and subsamples of G20 countries (excluding the European Union) from 1986 to 2018. The results indicated that financial development and human capital decreased carbon emissions, while GDP and energy consumption substantially increased carbon emissions during the study time. Further, globalization moderated the positive impact of financial development and human development on carbon emissions. A sustainable environmental agenda is achieved by a stronger financial system, encouraging green finance, and including technical education that improves production efficiency. However, globalization moderated the negative impact of energy consumption and GDP on carbon emission. Besides, we also reported the bidirectional causal relationship of GDP to energy consumption. Our empirical research provides new insights for policymakers and governments to formulate country-based policies to protect environmental quality while achieving sustainable economic goals.