'The Belt and Road Initiative' (B&R) was proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in September and October 2013 and is now actively supported and participated by more than 100 countries and international organizations. B&R has become a hot topic all over the world since its inception. However, the environmental issues arising from this Initiative should not be underestimated. The concept of 'A Community of Shared Future for Mankind' is being promoted under the context of globalization, and there has been a lot of coverage in the mainstream media from various countries on the topic of environmental cooperation along B&R. This study takes a sample of reports on the 'Belt and Road Environmental Cooperation' from July 2021 to August 2022 and uses Van Dijk's theory of news discourse analysis to analyze 20 articles in depth. This study attempts to explore the kind of thematic structure and lexical style that the mainstream newspapers from different countries use to report the environmental cooperation among the countries along B&R, also the implications of such a thematic structure and lexical style, and the characteristics of the discourse construction of mainstream newspapers in different countries. The research has found that B&R countries are used to holding a positive attitude to make a report and seek international cooperation. The headlines are mostly made up of nouns, and both direct and indirect quotations are used. Besides, to enhance the truth of the report, different number types are also involved; the theme structures are often made up of a two-level hierarchy.
The tourism industry is vulnerable to a range of economic and political factors, which can have both short-term and long-term impacts on tourist arrivals. The study aims to investigate the temporal dynamics of these factors and their impact on tourist arrivals. The method employed is a panel data regression analysis, using data from BRICS economies over a period of 1980-2020. The dependent variable is the number of tourist arrivals, while the independent variables are geopolitical risk, currency fluctuation, and economic policy. Control variables such as GDP, exchange rate, and distance to major tourist destinations are also included. The results show that geopolitical risk and currency fluctuation have a significant negative impact on tourist arrivals, while economic policy has a positive impact. The study also finds that the impact of geopolitical risk is stronger in the short term, while the impact of economic policy is stronger in the long term. Additionally, the study shows that the effects of these factors on tourist arrivals vary across BRICS countries. The policy implications of this study suggest that BRICS economies need to develop proactive economic policies that promote stability and encourage investment in the tourism industry.
Australia is one of the largest nations in the globe in terms of land area and is home to numerous animals alongside unique and unusual climates and immense forests and oceans. Despite having a very tiny population, the nation is an extremely valuable ecological territory. Unfortunately, due to several changes in land use, habitat loss and deterioration-particularly in light of the recent severe bush fires exacerbated by climate change-the environmental issues in Australia have got the attention of many academics. Therefore, this paper seeks to assess the association between Australia's energy use, [Formula: see text] emission, trade liberalization, industrialization and economic growth from 1990 to 2018. An autoregressive distributed lag and a vector error correction model (VECM) are employed to take care of possible endogeneity and the long-run association. Our results demonstrated that economic growth and energy use have positive and statistically significant effects on emissions of [Formula: see text], but trade liberalization has a significantly adverse influence on emissions of [Formula: see text] both in the long and short term. Granger test in VECM uncovered single-direction Granger interrelationships among trade liberalization and industrialization, as well as among industrialization and carbon dioxide. When attempting to implement effective energy policies, Australian policymakers should first take into account the prominent role played by energy usage and trade liberalization in promoting economic development and impeding environmental health.
The spatial effects of agricultural market integration on industrial agglomeration are an important field of regional economic. This paper collected the data of agricultural market integration and industrial agglomeration in 31 provinces in China from 2010 to 2019, analyzed the spatial effects of the two by constructing a dynamic spatial Dubin model, and explored its long-term and short-term effects of the spatial effects. The results show the following: (1) the primary terms of agricultural market integration were negative and the secondary terms were positive. The impact of agricultural market integration on local industrial agglomeration had a "U-shaped" characteristic. Whether in the short-term or long-term, there was a significant direct effect of "suppression to promotion." (2) The agricultural market integration had a spatial spillover effect on industrial agglomeration in the neighboring areas. This effect had an "inverted U-shaped" characteristic. Whether in the short-term or long-term, there was a prominent spatial spillover effect of "promotion to suppression." (3) For direct effects, the short-term direct effects of agricultural market integration on industrial agglomeration were - 0.0452 and 0.0077, and the long-term direct effects were - 0.2430 and 0.0419. For spatial spillover effects, the short-term spatial spillover effects were 0.0983 and - 0.0179, and the long-term spatial spillover effects were 0.4554 and - 0.0827. The long-term effects were greater than the short-term effects. This paper provides empirical evidence for the effects of agricultural market integration on industrial agglomeration in different regions, and exploring the development of agricultural agglomeration in the long-term.
Numerous studies have demonstrated that the development of low-carbon economy and industrial restructuring cannot occur in a coordinated manner. However, academic literature does not provide further explanations for this phenomenon. In this paper, we introduce a novel decomposition method to reassess the relationship between industrial restructuring and low-carbon economy, which yields similar findings. Next, we construct a straightforward theoretical model to investigate two fundamental reasons that interrelate with this issue: excessively high proportion of secondary sector and excessive carbon intensity of tertiary sector. Finally, we implement a rigorous causal identification using three-dimensional panel data at the provincial, industrial, and yearly levels by undergoing multiple robustness tests and mitigating endogeneity issues. Our heterogeneity tests suggest that the impact of industrial restructuring is greater in high-polluting industries, the Eastern region, and non-digital pilot regions. Overall, our theoretical and empirical analysis serves as a vital reference for other developing and developed countries to attain harmonious development between low-carbon economy and industrial restructuring.
There is a shred of evidence of environmental degradation in the form of carbon emissions to behave differently when tested with different macroeconomic variables. This paper aims to examine the long-run and short-run association between natural resource rent, financial development, and urbanization on carbon emission from the context of the USA during 1995-2015 with the help of a contemporary and innovative approach named quantile autoregressive distributed lagged model (QARDL). The stated approach is applied due to the fact that non-linearity is observed for the study variables. The findings indicated that the higher financial development (0.304), natural resource rent (0.102), and urbanization (0.489) have a positive impact on the environmental degradation in the region of USA during long-run estimation in the stated quantiles of the study. This would indicate that higher financial development, urbanization, and natural resources are putting more environmental pressure on the economy of the USA. Similarly, the findings under short-run estimation confirm that past and lagged values of carbon emission, financial development, natural resource rent, and urbanization are significantly determining the current values of the carbon emission. For this reason, it is suggested that the government requires some immediate steps of the USA to control the harmful effect of such financial development, more urbanization, and higher natural resource rent as well. This would indicate the reflection of some green strategies in all three explanatory variables to generate some fruitful environmental outcomes.
The government of any country can play a great role in promoting economic and environmental policy reforms in both normal and crisis periods, but during the crisis period, the role of the government should take the economy into a recovery position. The stock market is the backbone of the financial system that needs the government's attention, especially in the period of financial stress and environmental protection is the responsibility of every economy to live in a healthy environment. Combining this motive, this study analyzed the role of the government towards the stock market and carbon emission by using different approaches, including the wavelet approach, OLS regression, and the Granger causality test. The wavelet approach is useful for analyzing the role of the government at different time intervals by using the time horizon from 1993 to 2021. World governance's six indicators in terms of voice and accountability, control of corruption, rules of law, regulatory quality, political stability, and government effectiveness are used as the proxy for the role of the government. Our findings show that all WGI indicators have a positive relationship with the stock market of Malaysia except voice and accountability while concerning voice and accountability, the role of the government of Malaysia is negative on the stock market. Similarly, our findings also show that the effective government governance mechanism through WGI indicators has a significant positive impact on CO2 emission due to industrialization. Furthermore, findings of the Granger causality test reveal that all the WGI indicators cause to stock market of Malaysia, and political stability has bi-directional causality indicating stock market index is also a factor that caused the political stability within Malaysia. In the Granger causality results of the CO2 and WGI indicators, there is unidirectional causality found between rules of law and regulatory quality with CO2 emission. This study advocated strong implementations for the investors for investment decisions in effective governance countries and implications for the government to remove their weakness by making effective governance related to the economy and as well as the environments within the country.
This study critically examines the dynamic interplay between green finance and environmental sustainability using a systematic review and bibliometric analysis. The analysis is centered on 507 scholarly articles published between 2013 and 2023 in the Scopus database and leverages Microsoft Excel, Harzing Publish or Perish, and VOSviewer to identify publication trends, key contributors, research impact, and emergent themes in this rapidly evolving field. The findings reveal that research on green finance and environmental sustainability has increased exponentially over the past decade, with China and institutions in Asia emerging as prominent contributors compared to other regions. This study also identified the Environmental Science and Pollution Research journal as the most active source title, demonstrating its commitment to publishing current findings on the topic. Through keyword analysis, several research avenues have been proposed to guide future research on enhancing the strategic role of green finance in promoting environmental sustainability. These avenues include broadening the geographical scope of research, exploring the synergies between green finance and emerging fintech innovations, developing robust metrics to quantify the socioeconomic impacts of green finance, establishing a risk and resilience framework to protect green finance against uncertainties, and creating a Green Finance Performance Index to evaluate the dual returns of environmental and financial performance.
This study investigates the impact of macroprudential policies on CO2 emissions in G7 and BRIC countries using country-level panel data from 11 countries, covering the period from 1992 to 2020. The findings indicate that macroprudential policies alleviate CO2 emissions in the sample. Quantile regression results reveal that policies can exacerbate CO2 emissions in countries with high levels of CO2 emissions due to carbon leakage. The positive impact of macroprudential policies on sustainable development can be strengthened by high level of globalisation. Moreover, the influence of macroprudential policies stayed the same based on the basic regression results during the post-global financial crisis (GFC) period, while the impact was positive in the pre-GFC period. Finally, robust tests validated the findings reported in the basic regression model. From this, policymakers should prioritise sustainable economic growth when implementing macroprudential policies and leverage the influence of globalisation to amplify their impact on CO2 emissions. Furthermore, it is crucial to strengthen environmental regulations to prevent carbon leakage that result from industries seeking lenient standards.
Carbon reduction has become a major challenge for China's economy in its transition toward sustainability. The government has been monitoring the behavior of enterprises through regulations to protect the environment, while green finance has rapidly developed in recent years as a new tool to reduce carbon emissions. Despite these measures, few studies have explored the interaction between these two drivers of carbon reduction. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the impact of green finance and environmental regulations on carbon emissions. To determine whether their coordination can lead to greater carbon reduction, the spatial spillover effect of this impact was also investigated. The results show that green finance can reduce carbon emissions and that the interaction of green finance with environmental regulations plays a significant positive role in reducing carbon emissions. Finally, this study concludes that the carbon reduction effects of green finance and environmental regulations have positive spillover effects on adjacent areas.
An era of rapid changes in the technological and economic aspects of developing and developed countries can have detrimental extortions on the environment around the world. From the perspective of globalization, the rapid development and growth can reroute to enhance the interaction between people, organizations, and countries across the globe including China through the usage of information and communication technology which in turn contributes to the economic growth of one side, whereas on the other side, it affects the environmental quality. Referring to this aspect, this study is focused to inspect the link between information and communication technology, and globalization with the facets of degradation in the environment that as CO2 emission and ecological footprint by keeping the view of economic growth prospects as well via using the EKC hypothesis. In our study, time-series data was employed from 1987 to 2020 for China using the Dynamic ARDL approach. Grounded on the findings of the study, economic growth from the sight of GDP fallouts in rising the emission of CO2 and EFP in the short and long run whereas GDP sqr cause decrease in the CO2 emission and EFP. Thus, this authorizes the presence of inverted U-shaped existence among GDP sqr, CO2 emission, and EFP. Therefore, this provides provision for the EKC hypothesis in China. Furthermore, ICT and globalization cause a decline in the emission of CO2 and EFP in the short and long run respectively. In combatting challenges linked to the environment, globalization, as well as ICT, is seen as a crucial factor based on the pieces of evidence in our study while the policy implications are also proposed in the paper.
Advances in financial inclusions have contributed to economic growth and poverty alleviation, addressing environmental implications and implementing measures to mitigate climate change. Financial inclusions force advanced countries to progress their policies in a manner that does not hinder developing countries' current and future development. Consequently, this research examined the asymmetric effects of information and communication technology (ICT), financial inclusion, consumption of primary energy, employment to population ratio, and human development index on CO2 emissions in oil-producing countries (UAE, Nigeria, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Norway, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Iraq, USA, and Canada). The study utilizes annual panel data spanning from 1990 to 2021. In addition, this study investigates the validity of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) trend on the entire sample, taking into account the effects of energy consumption and population to investigate the impact of financial inclusion on environmental degradation. The study used quantile regression, FMOLS, and FE-OLS techniques. Preliminary outcomes revealed that the data did not follow a normal distribution, emphasizing the need to use quantile regression (QR). This technique can effectively detect outliers, data non-normality, and structural changes. The outcomes from the quantile regression analysis indicate that ICT consistently reduces CO2 emissions in all quantiles (ranging from the 1st to the 9th quantile). In the same way, financial inclusion, and employment to population ratio constrains CO2 emissions across each quantile. On the other side, primary energy consumption and Human development index were found to increase CO2 emissions in each quantile (1st to 9th). The findings of this research have implications for both the academic and policy domains. By unraveling the intricate interplay between financial inclusion, ICT, and environmental degradation in oil-producing nations, the study contributes to a nuanced understanding of sustainable development challenges. Ultimately, the research aims to guide the formulation of targeted policies that leverage financial inclusion and technology to foster environmentally responsible economic growth in oil-dependent economies.
Based on the panel data of 22 inland provinces in China from 2010 to 2020, this study constructs and measures the level of rural ecological environment in China. The impact of the financial performance of green-listed companies on the rural ecological environment and its moderating and threshold effects are analyzed. The following conclusions are drawn: (1) During 2010-2020, China's rural ecological environment shows a trend of "fluctuating-decreasing-rising" with significant regional non-equilibrium characteristics. (2) The financial performance of green-listed companies has a significantly negative impact on rural ecology. This negative impact has a crucial heterogeneous feature, with a more significant negative impact in areas with a higher rural ecological environment index and less substantial performance in regions with a lower rural ecological environment index. (3) There is a significant positive moderating effect of education level and digitalization on the relationship between the financial performance of green-listed companies on the level of rural ecological development. As moderating variables, the digitalization and education level weakens the negative impact of green-listed companies' performance on the ecological environment. The positive impact of the financial performance of green-listed companies on the development level of the rural ecological environment is more vital in areas with higher per capita education levels and digitalization in rural areas. (4) There is a significant threshold effect on the financial performance of green-listed companies on the level of rural ecological development. When the financial performance of green-listed companies exceeds a particular threshold value, the impact of the financial performance of green-listed companies on the development level of the rural ecological environment is significantly positive. Based on the above findings, this paper puts forward corresponding countermeasure suggestions.
The COVID-19 pandemic has emerged as a significant event of the current century, introducing substantial transformations in economic and social activities worldwide. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between daily COVID-19 cases and Pakistan stock market (PSX) return volatility. To assess the relationship between daily COVID-19 cases and the PSX return volatility, we collected secondary data from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the PSX website, specifically focusing on the PSX 100 index, spanning from March 15, 2020, to March 31, 2021. We used the GARCH family models for measuring the volatility and the COVID-19 impact on the stock market performance. Our E-GARCH findings show that there is long-term persistence in the return volatility of the stock market of Pakistan in the period of the COVID-19 timeline because ARCH alpha (ω1) and GARCH beta (ω2) are significant. Moreover, is asymmetrical effect is found in the stock market of Pakistan during the COVID-19 period due to Gamma (ѱ) being significant for PSX. Our DCC-GARCH results show that the COVID-19 active cases have a long-term spillover impact on the Pakistan stock market. Therefore, the need of strong planning and alternative platform should be needed in the distress period to promote the stock market and investor should advised to make diversified international portfolio by investing in high and low volatility stock market to save their income. This study advocated the implications for investors to invest in low volatility stock especially during the period of pandemics to protect their return on investment. Moreover, policy makers and the regulators can make effective policies to maintain financial stability during pandemics that is very important for the country's economic development.
Pollution in the environment is today the biggest issue facing the globe and the main factor in the development of many fatal diseases. The main objective of the study to investigate green investments, economic growth and financial development on environmental pollution in the G-7 countries. This study used annual penal data from 1997 to 2021. The panel NARDL (Non-linear autoregressive distributed lag) results affirm that the positive change of green investment and negative shock in green investment have a significant and positive association with environment pollution in G-7 nations. Our findings provide more evidence for the long-term asymmetry between financial development and environmental performance. However, the findings confirm that a positive modification in financial development has a positive and significant effect on environment pollution. Whereas negative shock in financial development is negative and insignificant relationship with environment pollution. Moreover, the outcomes of the study reveal that both positive shock in gross domestic product growth and negative shock of economic growth have a significant and positive link with environment pollution in G-7 countries. According to the findings, by lowering carbon dioxide emissions, green investments reduced environmental pollution in the G-7 nations over the long and short term. Moreover, it is an innovative research effort that provides light on the connection between green investments, financial development, and the environment while making mention to the EKC in G-7 countries. After all these, our recommendation is to increases green investment expenditures to reduce environmental pollution in the G-7 nations based on our findings. Additionally, one important way for the nation to achieve its sustainable development goals is to improve advancements in the financial sector.
The aim of this research is to explore the association between financial development, research and development (R&D) expenditures, globalization, institutional quality, and energy consumption in India by using the quarterly data of 1995-2018. Quantile Autoregressive Distributed Lag (QARDL) approach is employed to examine the relationship. An application of the QARDL approach suggests that the R&D, financial development, globalization, and institutional quality significantly influence energy utilization in India. R&D and institutional quality have a negative effect on energy utilization which shows that due to the increase in the quality of institutions and R&D in the country, energy utilization is likely to decrease. However, globalization and financial performance have a positive influence on energy which depicts that due to the increase in financial performance and globalization in India the energy consumption is likely to increase. According to the outcomes of this research, India should make a policy to ease the penalties of energy utilization by monitoring resource transfer by means of globalization and by implementing energy conversation procedures through the advancement of the financial sector.
China is the world's largest fossil fuel consumer and carbon emitter country. In September 2020, China pledged to reduce carbon emissions, and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. Therefore, this study aimed to contribute to the literature and show the pictorial nexus of bioenergy and fossil fuel consumption, carbon emission, and agricultural bioeconomic growth, a new pathway towards carbon neutrality. For this study, time-series data from 1971 to 2019 were used to analyze the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bound testing and novel dynamic autoregressive distributed lag (DYNARDL) simulation models. Initially, the unit root tests results showed that all variables were stationarity at the level and first difference. The presence of cointegration between selected variables was confirmed by the results from ARDL bound test. In addition, the results of long-run and short-run nexus show an increase in bioenergy consumption that caused an increase in agricultural bioeconomic growth both in the long and short-run nexus. A decrease in fossil fuel consumption was shown to result in increased agricultural bioeconomic growth with respect to both long- and short-term effects. Furthermore, the results of the novel dynamic ARDL simulation model demonstrated that a 10% positive shock from bioenergy consumption caused an increase in agricultural bioeconomic growth, while at the same time, a 10% negative shock in bioenergy consumption led to a decrease. A 10% negative shock from fossil fuels caused an increase in agricultural bioeconomic growth, whereas a 10% positive shock from fossil fuels led to a decrease. Therefore, this study suggests that China needs to switch from fossil fuel and other non-renewable energy consumption to sources of bioenergy and other renewable energy consumption to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.
Environmental degradation is significantly studied both in the past and the current literature; however, steps towards reducing the environmental pollution in carbon emission and haze pollution like PM2.5 are not under rational attention. This study tries to cover this gap while considering the carbon emission and PM2.5 through observing the role of renewable energy, non-renewable energy, environmental taxes, and ecological innovation for the top Asian economies from 1990 to 2017. For analysis purposes, this research considers cross-sectional dependence analysis, unit root test with and without structural break (Pesaran, 2007), slope heterogeneity analysis, Westerlund and Edgerton (2008) panel cointegration analysis, Banerjee and Carrion-i-Silvestre (2017) cointegration analysis, long-short run CS-ARDL results, as well as AMG and CCEMG for robustness check. The empirical evidence in both the short- and long-run has confirmed the negative and significant effect of renewable energy sources, ecological innovation, and environmental taxes on carbon emissions and PM2.5. Whereas, non-renewable energy sources are causing environmental degradation in the targeted economies. Finally, various policy implications related to carbon emission and haze pollution like PM2.5 are also provided to control their harmful effect on the natural environment.
Biotechnology will play a key role in transforming current land-use systems alongside the digital revolution by using five strategies: enhancing productivity at the farm or plantation level, replenishing degraded land, enabling landscape management for resilience, upgrading and diversifying downstream activities, and creating new value propositions.
Urbanization has made tremendous contributions to China's economic development since its economic reforms and opening up. At the same time, population agglomeration has aggravated environmental pollution and posed serious challenges to China's environment. This article empirically investigates the impacts of China's urbanization on eco-efficiency, comprehensively reflecting economic growth, resource input, and waste discharge. We first measured the provincial eco-efficiency in China from 2005 to 2015 using the Super Slack-Based model (Super-SBM). We then constructed a spatial model to empirically analyze the effects of urbanization on eco-efficiency at the national level, and at four regional levels. The results indicated that the regional eco-efficiency in China has fluctuated, but is generally improving, and that a gap between regions was evident, with a trend toward further gap expansion. We observed an effect of spatial spillover in eco-efficiency, which was significant and positive for the whole country, except for the western region. The influence of urbanization on China's eco-efficiency exhibited a U-curve relationship. The changing trend in the eastern, central, and western regions was the same as that in the whole country; however, the trend exhibited an inverted U-curve relationship in the northeastern region. To the best of our knowledge, covering a time period of 2005-2015, this article is the first of its kind to study the impact of urbanization on eco-efficiency in China at both the national and regional levels. This study may help policy-makers to create sustainable policies that could be helpful in balancing urbanization and the ecological environment.