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In the 22 well-developed countries of the world, the level of CO2emissions has been reducing over the years despite positive economic growth. This study therefore attempts to explore the role of contributory factors for CO2emissions reduction in these countries. Selecting the data period of 1990–2018, our chosen independent variables are gross domestic product (GDP), square of the gross domestic product (GDP2), renewable energy, technological innovation and export quality. Adopting a panel non-linear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) approach, a pooled mean group (PMG) estimation technique is used to explore the asymmetric linkages between CO2emissions and these independent variables. The panel heterogeneous causality test is used to examine the direction of causality. The estimated results have confirmed the existence of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis; and renewable energy and export quality are found as contributory factors for the reduction of CO2emissions. Positive stimuli of technological innovation measured by research and development expenditure and export quality index reduce, whereas the negative shocks or counter incentives of these variables increase CO2emissions. In regards to causal relationship, bidirectional causality is found between renewable energy and CO2emissions, technological innovation and CO2emissions, GDP and renewable energy, and renewable energy and technological innovation. In addition, a unidirectional causality is also revealed from GDP to CO2emissions, export quality and technological innovation, and from technological innovation to export quality. Policy recommendations are made following the findings.

Climate change is an increasingly serious problem, resulting in significant environmental degradation, and various policies and regulations have been adopted to achieve zero-carbon with the goal of ameliorating this issue. To end this, along with economic growth, governments should consider human activities such as tourism and energy consumption, which are responsible for raising CO2emissions, a proxy for environmental degradation, in the atmosphere. Tourism may contribute to climate change through various adverse activities such as transportation and hotel stays. Thus, this study investigates the long-run cointegrating relationship between tourism and environmental degradation, focusing on some other specific factors. Using data from 1976 to 2019, the autoregressive distributed lag bounds test approach is applied to obtain both long-run and short-run coefficients. The estimated results indicate that tourism obstructs the achievement of zero-carbon in Australia. Along with tourist arrivals, energy consumption and gross domestic product are also significant contributors which have a positive and statistically significant long-run relationship with carbon emissions. This study provides policy implications for zero-carbon and sustainable tourism growth in Australia.