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Over the past few decades, rapid or unplanned urbanization has been a major problem for developing countries, affecting the environment very badly. Pakistan is also the fifth most vulnerable country in terms of environmental impact from socio-economic activities. Mostly, this type of research has been conducted across countries. So, this study intends to analyze the role of urbanization in energy consumption, economic growth, trade, and technology in carbon emissions by evaluating data from 1985 to 2021 in the context of Pakistan. Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) and non-linear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) with Granger causality assessment are employed to experimentally examine the variables' short and long-term associations. The ARDL result demonstrates that carbon dioxide (LCO2) emissions are increased by energy consumption (LEC) and technology (LTech), while they are decreased by economic growth (LEG) and trade (LT). In NARDL, rising and falling urbanization (LU) lead to increased carbon emissions, but insignificantly. Ascending LEC leads to increased emissions, whereas descending LEC leads to reduced emissions in the context of short and long-term asymmetry. Yet, the opposite is true in the case of trade: a rise in LT decreases emissions significantly, whereas a fall in LT increases emissions insignificantly. This paper highlights the importance of international trade for a country facing these challenges. This means that LT is at the forefront of emission-reducing technology. A Granger causality analysis results show that LU and LTech are two critical determinants of LCO2 emissions. Diagnostic tests ensure the model's reliability, ensuring that it could potentially be used without adverse intent. The research concludes that in order to minimize carbon dioxide emissions, the government should encourage the adoption of low-carbon technology through international trade (the exchange or import of low-carbon products) and implement policies tailored to urbanization and energy demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to economists, rapid economic growth depends on the active energy system of any country. Through financial development, the latest trend of globalization applies pressure on energy consumption, which eventually validates growth in the economy. Therefore, the role of financial development and renewable energy consumption on economic growth is still being questioned. This paper contributes to this issue by raising concerns about the possible asymmetric links among financial development, renewable energy, and economic growth along with capital and labor. Applying a nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag model, our paper demonstrates that neglecting the involvement of nonlinearities leads to confusing conclusions. Results show that variables of interest have asymmetric impacts in short- and long-runs. Our analysis shows that short- and long-run impacts of renewable energy consumption and financial development on growth vary significantly. Notably, this study finds that renewable energy consumption has a positive and significant impact on economic growth in the short- and long-runs, and financial development has a strong, asymmetric, and positive effect on economic growth in the short and negative effects in long-run. The findings also have important implications for policymakers as well as investors in Pakistan's energy sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Particulate pollution has become a major issue in developing countries including Pakistan. Aerosols are causing severe impacts on climate and human health. To understand the effects of aerosols on the environment and human health, we must first understand their optical and physical properties. In this paper, we used ozone monitoring instrument (OMI) retrieved ultraviolet aerosol index (UVAI) to analyze spatial and temporal distribution, annual and seasonal trends of absorbing aerosols, and their relationship with meteorological parameters (e.g., temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed) over Pakistan from October 2004 to December 2021. Significant spatiotemporal changes in UVAI values were found with high values in southern and central regions and low values in northern regions of Pakistan. The mean UVAI over Pakistan showed an increasing trend of 2.89% year−1. Seasonally, UVAI increases at the rate of 3.97% winter−1, 3.24% autumn−1, 0.81% summer−1, and 0.71% spring−1. A strong positive correlation of UVAI with precipitation and temperature (~ 0.6) is observed in the central and southern regions of Pakistan. A negative and positive correlation of −0.3223 and 0.4284 of UVAI with CO2 emissions and primary industry is observed in Pakistan, respectively. We also found potential sources of aerosols over major cities of Pakistan using the Hybrid Single Particle Langrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model. It determines that the dominant aerosols over Karachi are natural aerosols like sea salt and dust particles and anthropogenic aerosols are dominant over Lahore. Moreover, the natural and anthropogenic factors influencing absorbing aerosols are also discussed herein. Considering the outcomes of this study different methods would be used to reduce the concentration of particulate pollution like afforestation, efficient fuel energy consumption, promotion of public transport networks, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worldwide, biogas programs fail to achieve broad acceptability because of failure to account for socio-economic constraints during program design and implementation. This paper attempts to revisit the relationship between socio-economic characteristics of rural households and adoption of biogas technology at the household level in Pakistan by using a predicted willingness-to-adopt approach in addition to considering energy-related variables which have been rarely accounted for in previous literature. The study is based on primary data collected from 200 households across eight villages in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Province. A chi-square test of association is applied to determine the relationship between farmers' socio-economic characteristics and their willingness-to-adopt domestic biogas technology. Results confirm that socio-economic factors such as education, total landholdings, cost of energy consumption, duration of electric shortfalls, occurrence of smoke-related diseases, and possession of livestock had a significant relationship with farmers' willingness-to-adopt biogas technology. The study concludes that for the successful deployment of biogas technology in rural areas, it is imperative to account for the socio-economic conditions of the population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The natural gas (NG) forms the sizeable portion of the primary energy consumption in Pakistan. However, its depleting domestic reserves and increasing demand is challenging to balance the supply–demand in the country. This paper investigates the relationship between NG consumption and driving factors using LMDI-STIRPAT PLSR framework. It is learned that fossil energy structure and per capita gross domestic product (GDP) are most influencing factors on NG consumption, followed by non-clean energy structure, energy intensity, and population. The factors were further modelled to forecast the future values of NG consumption for various scenarios. It is found that NG consumption would be 42.107 MTOE under the high development scenario which would be twice the baseline scenario. It is projected that indigenous NG production will fall from 4 to 2 billion cubic feet/day and demand will increase by 1.5 billion cubic feet/day. Therefore, an optimized strategy is required for a long-term solution to cater this increasing supply–demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Around the globe, all developing and developed economies focus on renewable energy sources for clean and sustainable economic growth and aim to decrease carbon emission to improve the climatic condition. This study aims to evaluate the feasible renewable energy source in Pakistan and study the criteria based on the investigation of wind energy, biomass energy, geothermal and solar energy, and their effects on Pakistan's climate. As renewable energy, clean and sustainable production is only produced from renewable energy sources; the current paper bears the viability of five primary renewable energy sources in Pakistan. This article established an advanced fuzzy (AHP) with a multi-perspective approach based on the expert assessment to select the efficient renewable energy in Pakistan. Further in this study, we utilized the DEA model to investigate the relative efficacy of renewable energy. This study indicated that wind energy is the efficient renewable energy source in Pakistan, which showed an efficiency score of 0. 1000. Our results further suggested that wind energy's next option for renewable energy solar best for renewable production in Pakistan. The results further exposed that the solar is the second-highest energy source with an efficiency score of 0. 777. Moreover, geothermal gets a less efficient score, that of 0.198. Further, our study showed that the economic benefits (EBs) and environmental implication criteria are significant in this research. This article gives a strong recommendation for a future wind energy source in Pakistan. Our results suggest that the best renewable energy source in the future is wind energy for the sustainable and economic development of Pakistan and other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A comprehensive assessment of energy use, environmental degradation, and economic progress can play a significant role in transition towards low-carbon economy, and it can serve as a reference for the green economic development for the rest of the developing world. The objective of this paper is to empirically investigate the current status of conventional and renewable energy use and environmental degradation. Following this, we have analyzed the decoupling relation among environmental degradation, energy use, and economic progress in Pakistan. The study adopted the comprehensive data from year 1972–2017 and applied Tapio decoupling method to explore the decoupling status of environmental degradation, energy use, and economic progress in Pakistan. The key finding from the study shows that the overall value of carbon emissions in Pakistan is relatively increasing with the passage of time and shows about 5.26% average growth rate which is creating severe environmental degradation. There were observed several fluctuations in the trend of carbon emissions which is basically due to the policy changes in the country. From the decoupling point of view, we found the decoupling linkage between energy use and carbon emissions that is growth negative decoupling, whereas a weak decoupling relation has been observed among carbon emissions and economic progress which means that in most of the year's county has achieved more economic growth compared with the carbon emissions. In addition, the similar weak decoupling relationship was found among energy use and economic progress. In the light of these findings, it is suggested to policymakers to promote technological advancement and alternate energy that will not only improve environmental quality, but it will also promote a low-carbon economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural gas is a vital energy resource that is used to produce the national output of Pakistan. On the other hand, since natural gas is a relatively cleaner energy resource compared to oil and coal, enhancing the level of natural gas consumption can be expected to promote economic growth while somewhat improving environmental quality in the process. Hence, it is pertinent to assess the economic growth effects associated with the consumption of such comparatively cleaner energy resources. Against this background, the main objective of this paper is to explore the asymmetric effects of natural gas consumption, controlling for financial development, on Pakistan's economic growth figure over the 1965–2019 period. The results from the Augmented Dickey–Fuller, Phillips–Perron, and Zivot–Andrews unit root tests confirm a mixed order of integration among the variables. Besides, the bounds test and the Gregory–Hansen co-integration analysis reveal evidence of long-run associations between economic growth, natural gas consumption, and financial development in the context of Pakistan. Moreover, the outcomes from the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag model analysis show that in the short-run, positive changes in the natural gas consumption levels increase Pakistan's economic growth. On the other hand, in the long-run, positive and negative changes in natural gas consumption levels increase and decrease the nation's economic growth level, respectively. On the other hand, both positive and negative changes in the financial development level are found to reduce Pakistan's economic growth level in the long run only. Furthermore, the Hacker–Hatemi-J causality analysis verifies that natural gas consumption causally influences the economic growth level in Pakistan; thus, verifying the energy consumption-led growth phenomenon. In line with these key findings, several policy level suggestions are put forward for Pakistan to enhance its natural gas consumption level in order to boost its economic growth rate in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon dioxide emission and GHGs are associated with fossil fuels which have adverse effects on the environment. The key intention of this paper was to determine the asymmetric effect of CO2 emission on expenditures, trade, FDI, and renewable energy consumption in Pakistan. An asymmetrical technique (nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag) was employed to validate the constructive and adverse relation among variables. Furthermore, the Granger causality test was also used to verify the unidirectional association amid variables. Study outcomes revealed that the adverse shocks of renewable energy consumption exposed expressively to upsurge CO2 emission in the short-run dynamics. Conversely, constructive shocks of renewable energy consumption display an adversative association with CO2 emission. Furthermore, the decreasing trend in foreign direct investment tends to impede the detrimental effects of CO2 emission. Additionally, the variable expenditures also create the non-eco-friendly impacts and manifest the positive linkage through CO2 emission. Trade possesses statistically insignificant linkage with environmental degradation. The results also disclose that positive as well as negative variations in the foreign direct investment expose to degrade the environmental eminence. Long-run results suggest the direct association between downward trend in renewable energy consumption and CO2 emission signifying that the pollution level decreases, and the upward trend in renewable energy consumption, however, demonstrates insignificantly positive effects. The results also disclose that positive as well as negative variations in the FDI lead to degrade the CO2 emission. Moreover, it is found that the expenditures soar the issue of pollution again in the long run. Finally, the consequence of trade on CO2 emission is adverse, as the outcome suggests. In order to improve the environmental policies for sustainable growth, the study provides direction toward a sustainable environment by reducing carbon dioxide emission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand the nexus between economic growth and energy sources, in this study, we have selected Pakistan and collected data over the period 1980–2016. The neoclassical production function of Pakistan is augmented with conventional and renewable energy, capital, and labor. Conversely, the conventional and renewable models are being constructed by using GDP as an independent variable. This paper applied linear and nonlinear ARDL models to see whether the influence of conventional and renewable energy consumption on GDP per capita of Pakistan is symmetric or asymmetric and vice versa. Furthermore, the asymmetric causal effects between the energy variables and economic growth are also discussed. From the findings of the study, we deduce the long-run asymmetric effects of renewable energy on the economic growth of Pakistan. Similarly, the asymmetric effects of GDP, in the long run, are confirmed in both energy models. The symmetric and asymmetric causality results have recommended growth and conservation hypothesis. The findings propose that renewable energy is a significant factor in boosting the economic growth of Pakistan and a decline in the use of renewable energy could actually stem the economic growth of Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a strong relationship between energy consumption (EC) and economic growth (EG) of a country. However, different sources of energy have different influence on EG of different countries. This paper attempts to identify the source of energy that efficiently spurs EG in Pakistan by exploring the short- and long-run relationship between EC and EG during 1972–2015. Breakpoint unit root test was used to investigate the stationarity properties of the variables along with structural break. Autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) bound testing approach was used to determine the existence of long-run relationship among variables. The results of the ARDL model confirm the presence of cointegration among the variables. The findings confirm that renewable as well as non-renewable EC enhance EG in Pakistan. However, the magnitude of the coefficients and high significance level confirm that renewable energy (RE) spurs EG more efficiently than non-renewable energy. The study concludes that the government needs to increase investment in the development and exploration of RE resources to ensure sustainable EG in Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the Environmental Kuznets curve based on quantile behavior of the relationship between economic growth, forest area, agriculture production, renewable energy, and environmental degradation. The current literature generally used a single indicator to address environmental issues; however single indicator neither measures overall environmental conditions nor does specify that the environment issue is generally diminishing. Our study is the first one that used ecological footprint (EF) as an indicator to test environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for Pakistan by employing recent approach of quantile autoregressive distributed lag (QARDL) initiated by Cho et al. (J Econ 188(1):281–300, 2015). The result of this study validates the EKC hypothesis for Pakistan and shows quantile-dependent relationship, and in that case, using the conventional methods may somewhat lead to biased results. Moreover, the rejection of the null hypothesis of parameter constancy is also confirmed by Wald test. In the long run, the findings of renewable energy consumption and forest area show significant negative effects on ecological footprints, which indicates that by increasing renewable energy usage and forest area, ecological footprints can be minimized. Interestingly, the short-term effects of agricultural production findings on EF show statistically negative results. This illustrates that EF can also be reduced in the agriculture sector by adopting environment-friendly technologies. In order to create efficient policies for environment deterioration, the empirical findings of the current analysis can be used as a guideline for policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy strategy has been an essential strand in the view of economists in achieving rapid development process of any country. The recent wave of globalization exerts pressure on energy consumption via financial development which ultimately vindicates economic growth. This paper has covered a period of 1976–2016 using annual data for the empirical analysis and constructed a growth equation as the main equation and the energy consumption equation as a channel equation. The empirical study has been undertaken by performing ARDL and nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag models (NARDL). The bound test result declares a long-run association in both equations. Consequently, energy consumption and economic globalization have significantly enhanced economic growth in the long run. Whereas, financial development index has no influence on the economic growth of Pakistan. The results of channel equation suggested that due to growing the price of crude oil, the energy consumption is reduced in the long run. The increasing imports of energy products and increasing urbanization are conducive for energy consumption in Pakistan. By NARDL model, our empirical findings provide robust support for the existence of asymmetric co-integration linking among underlying variables of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy affects the economic growth and development of a country. Renewable energy has become an important part of the world's energy consumption. The use of fossil fuel energy contributes to global warming and carbon dioxide emissions, and has a detrimental effect on the environment. The long-run and short-run causality relationships between electric power consumption, renewable electricity output, renewable energy consumption, fossil fuel energy consumption, energy use, carbon dioxide emissions, and gross domestic product per capita for Pakistan over the period of 1990–2017 were investigated in this paper using the autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach to cointegration. The augmented Dickey–Fuller unit root test and the Phillips–Perron unit root test were used to check the stationarity of the variables, while the Johansen cointegration test was applied to check the robustness of the long-run relationships. The Granger causality test under the vector error correction model extracted during the short-run estimation showed a unidirectional relationship among all variables except for the relationship between gross domestic product per capita and carbon dioxide emission, which was bidirectional (feedback hypothesis). The evidence showed that in the long run, carbon dioxide emissions, electric power consumption, and renewable electricity output had a positive and significant relationship with the gross domestic product per capita, while the relationship of renewable energy consumption, energy use, and fossil fuel energy consumption with the gross domestic product per capita had a negative effect. Overall, the long-run effects of the variables were found to have a stronger effect on the gross domestic product per capita than the short-run dynamics, which indicated that the findings were heterogeneous. The evidence suggests that the government of Pakistan should take steps to enhance the use of renewable energy resources to resolve the energy crisis in the country and introduce new policies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The potential of solid waste as an energy source is clear, owing to its wide availability and renewable properties, which provide a critical answer for energy security. This can be especially effective in reducing the environmental impact of fossil fuels. Countries that rely heavily on coal should examine alternatives such as electricity from solid waste to provide a constant energy supply while also contributing to atmospheric restoration. In this regards, Low Emissions Analysis Platform (LEAP) is used for simulation the entire energy system in Pakistan and forecasted its capital cost and future CO2 emissions in relation to the use of renewable and fossil fuel resources under the different growth rates of solid waste projects like 20%, 30% and 40% for the study period 2023–2053. The results revealed that, 1402.97 TWh units of energy are generated to meet the total energy demand of 1193.93 TWh until 2053. The share of solid waste based electricity in total energy mix is increasing from a mere 0.81% in 2023 to around 9.44% by 2053 under the 20% growth rate, which then increase to 39.67% by 2053 under the 30% growth rate and further increases to 78.33% by 2053 under the 40% growth rate. It is suggested that 40% growth rate for solid waste based electricity projects is suitable for Pakistan until 2053 because under this condition, renewable sources contributes 95.2% and fossil fuels contributed 4.47% in the total energy mix of Pakistan. Hence, CO2 emissions are reduced from 148.26 million metric tons to 35.46 million metric tons until 2053 but capital cost is increased from 13.23 b$ in 2023 to 363.11 b$ by 2053. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last 4 decades, the world has changed its focus from imported energy resources to cheap resources either renewable or non-renewable for economic and social development. Currently, coal is the cheapest source of energy in Pakistan that can be used to fulfil the energy demands. This study inspects the causal association among domestic factors such as gross domestic product, coal consumption, rural–urban unemployment, rural–urban population, fiscal deficit and services value added from 1981 to 2017. This paper applies modern techniques to inspect the association between coal consumption and economic development of Pakistan. For this, Ng–Perron unit root test, autoregressive distributed lag models and vector error correction models are employed to examine the causalities between the factors. The research finds a long-run and short-run bidirectional association between economic improvement and coal use. In the short run, the results found a bidirectional causality among gross domestic product (GDP), coal consumption, unemployment, population and overall fiscal deficit. In the long run, GDP and coal use have a bidirectional association and the same is true with the other factors. During the period, cumulative sum (CUSUM) and CUSUM square have proved that structure is good. Moreover, we support the coal consumption in producing cheap energy that clues to financial development and unemployment reduction in Pakistan. The policy suggestions for the consequences are provided below. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the potential impact of economic growth, carbon emissions, trade, and energy use on tourism development in Pakistan from 1980 to 2018. This study employed the Autoregressive Distributed Lagged technique for the simultaneous estimations of short and long-run associations. The study found a positive impact of energy use, economic growth, and trade openness on tourism development in the short and long run. On the other hand, the study reveals a negative impact of CO2 emissions on tourism development in Pakistan. The study further applied an innovative accounting approach for robust results of the study. The study based on Toda Yamamoto causality approach revealed unidirectional causal association among the study variables. The results, thus, suggest the change in investment decisions as the government and policy makers should encourage investments in services sector rather than polluting industrial sector as the services sector is less polluting and leading sector of the economy. This, in turn, could help attract tourists due to environmentally and economically sustainable growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The logistics business is a crucial contributor to economic development, yet it is also the leading source of carbon emissions. Economic growth at the expense of environmental deterioration is a challenging issue; this phenomenon offered a new avenue for scholars and policymakers to investigate and address these issues. The recent study is one of the attempts to explore this intricate subject. The goal of this research is to determine whether or not the Chinese logistics sector has an impact on Pakistan's GDP and carbon emissions as a result of CPEC. The research utilized data from 2007Q1 to 2021Q4 using the ARDL approach for an empirical estimate. Due to the mixed order of variable integration and finite data set, the ARDL technique is well deserved, which helps reach sound policy inferences. The study's key results indicated that China's logistic business enhances Pakistan's economic development and carbon emissions in the short and long term. Similarly, China's energy usage, technology, and transportation contribute to Pakistan's economic progress at the price of environmental damage. The empirical study may be a model for other developing nations, given Pakistan's viewpoint. With the support of the empirical results, policymakers in Pakistan and other associated countries would be able to plan for sustainable growth in conjunction with CPEC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Present climate change consists of global warming that is caused by the emission of greenhouse gases, generally carbon dioxide. The study examines the pollution haven, pollution halo, and environmental Kuznets curve for a number of Asian countries during the period of 1985 to 2020. Outcomes suggest that urbanization, gross domestic product per capita, energy consumption, and foreign direct investment inflow have positive effects, while gross domestic product square, foreign direct investment square, and tourism have negative effects on emissions of carbon dioxide. Furthermore, findings support the validity of the environmental Kuznets curve, pollution haven, and pollution halo hypothesis for the selected Asian countries. We also find robust results of rationality of the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis for Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, China, Indonesia, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Singapore; of pollution haven hypothesis for Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, and Singapore; and of pollution halo hypothesis for Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, and Singapore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the race of economic development, the environment is compromising, especially in developing countries. Literature has highlighted many factors that have been causing CO2 emissions. The identification of factors behind environmental degradation is important to control them for a sustainable environment. In this regard, this study also identifies the role of the shadow economy for CO2 emission in the case of Pakistan. Furthermore, the impact of official/formal, GDP and true/actual GDP are also checked on CO2 emission function along with energy consumption and urbanization in Pakistan. The annual time series data from 1972 to 2018 is utilized. A novel dynamic autoregressive distributed lag simulation is employed to confirm the existence of cointegration. Moreover, this novel approach also estimates, stimulates, and plots to show a positive and negative change in variables on graphs. The estimated results confirm the long-run association between CO2 emission and its determinants in the case of Pakistan. A positive and significant impact of shadow, official and true GDP along with energy consumption and urbanization illustrate that shadow economy is contributing toward urbanization via huge investment in real estate that leads to higher urbanization which further increases the energy consumption particularly nonrenewable energy, natural gas, and coal consumption. Government and policymakers should introduce new controls and strengthen the existing ones to control CO2 emission via a decrease in the size of the shadow economy. Moreover, unplanned and irregular urbanization should be regular and documented to control illegal/shadow activities, hence, decreasing the nonrenewable energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy needs of Pakistan have increased many folds in recent years due to improved lifestyle, ever-increasing population, and economic development. Though the government and private sectors are considering efficient energy resources to overcome energy scarcity in the country, studies focusing on assessing consumers' sustainable consumption behavior in the form of energy-saving home appliances are limited in the country. This study aims to address this research gap and also contribute by augmenting the theoretical mechanism of the theory of planned behavior by including three unique dimensions (eco-label knowledge, attitude toward environment, and customer green trust) to comprehensively analyze sustainable consumption behavior in the Pakistani context. An analysis is performed on survey data of 631 consumers in the four largest cities of Pakistan: Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, and Islamabad. For the purpose of evaluating formulated hypotheses, the structural equation modeling approach is employed. Empirical findings suggest that eco-label knowledge positively and significantly influences attitude toward environment and consumer green trust. Similarly, attitude toward environment and consumer green trust has a positive and significant influence on purchase intention. Moreover, a significant positive relationship exists between consumer green trust and purchase intention. The research outcomes further disclose that purchase intention positively and significantly influence paying attention to environmental labels. These findings contribute to the literature on sustainable consumption behavior and provide academics and practitioners with future directions to transform social norms, raise consumers' awareness, and redesign policy frameworks through integrative and consistent efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past three decades, global economic development patterns have considerably affected the natural environment, and economies have endured a plethora of environmental concerns as a result of the negative effects of climate change. Among them, Pakistan is the fifth most vulnerable country, and climate change has harmfully affected the ecological and socio-economic conditions of the country. In this regard, this study aimed to investigate the role of green energy consumption, eco-innovation, and urbanization while explaining the dream of low-carbon economy and environmental sustainability in the context of Pakistan using annual time series dataset spanning from 1990 to 2020. The short-run and long-run associations among explained and explanatory variables were investigated using the symmetric, asymmetric, and quantile autoregressive distributed lag models. The findings of the study demonstrated that low-carbon economy, green energy consumption, ecological innovation, urbanization, GDP per capita, and labor force are cointegrated for the long-term association in symmetric, asymmetric, and quantile autoregressive distributed lag models. Furthermore, green energy consumption and effective eco-innovation are the most important paths to ensure environmental sustainability, while urbanization, GDP per capita, and labor force contribute negatively to the low-carbon economy. The findings of the study provide a policy framework for the development of a comprehensive strategy to promote environmental sustainability in Pakistan by emphasizing green energy consumption, ecological innovation, and controlled urbanization, as well as the incorporation of environment friendly policies into economic development policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic structural changes are a major factor that has a big impact on most of a country or region's economic systems and operations, as well as the environment. This study looks at how conventional energy-based power use affects carbon emissions in Pakistan through a structural change analysis of the country from 1971 to 2018. It uses the autoregressive distributed lags (ARDL) method and covers the period from 1971 to 2018. The long-term findings from the ARDL suggest that economic expansion, growth and development, and agro production lead to declining carbon emissions and in turn, will improve the state of the environment. Precisely, an increase in 1% of economic expansion and agricultural production will reduce carbon emissions by 1.26% and 0.53%, respectively. However, the current use of conventional energy to make electricity is causing carbon dioxide to be released into the air. People who live in cities use more conventional energy, which means that the amount of carbon dioxide they produce will go up by 1.53% for every 1% change in conventional energy use. This means that there are strong links between urbanzation and carbon emissions. Government and industry policymakers should encourage people to use renewable and conventional energy sources, encourage them to invest more in green-related businesses, and provide more social amenities and better infrastructure in Pakistan's rural areas, to name a few things. Doing so will help to reduce the continuing and uncontrolled influx of people to the country's cities, which simply further endangers the natural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current research aims to investigate the impact of financial development on the ecological footprint in Pakistan from 1980 to 2018 by controlling economic growth, the square of economic growth, and energy consumption. The structural break unit root test results show that all variables are stationary at first difference. The bound F-test for cointegration affirmed the indications of a long run connection between the parameters in the discussion. Moreover, we use the non-linear autoregressive distributed lag model to check the non-linear links in establishing the associations between financial development and ecological footprint. The outcomes suggest an asymmetric connection between financial development and ecological footprint because positive and negative shocks in financial development have different effects on ecological footprint. The findings reveal that the impact of the positive shock on financial development is negative but insignificant. Besides, the impact of the negative shock on financial development is positive and statistically significant. It implies that a 1% increase in the negative shock of financial development causes a 0.0877% rise in ecological footprint. The coefficient of economic growth is significant at a 1% level of significance. In the long run, a 0.4471% increase in ecological footprint is associated with a 1% increase in economic growth. However, the coefficient of the square of economic growth is negative but insignificant. Thus, the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis is not valid in Pakistan. Likewise, energy consumption positively affects the ecological footprint. The results of short run estimates correspond to the long run estimates. As a policy suggestion, the current study suggests expanding green financial development in Pakistan by emphasizing more on Sustainable Development Goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological innovations have a great potential to develop the transportation system as more efficient, intelligent, connected, and sustainable. Therefore, transport energy consumption fundamentally transmutes how goods and people are moved with significant effects on transport demand with related energy consumption on a sustainable environment. To this end, our research aimed at investigating the environmental performance (carbon dioxide and ecological footprint) by stochastic impact by regression through a population, affluence, and technology (STIRPAT) model, and econometric approach for estimation of transport energy consumption from 1975 to 2018 for Pakistan. Moreover, our study supports the literature by exploring the association of technological innovations, financial development, carbon damage costs, and economic growth with the environment. The linear relationships of the variables are governed by the autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) model that interestingly explored that economic growth and energy consumption, and financial development degrade the environment and resource depletion; however, technological innovations are inclined towards cleaner technologies. For asymmetric findings, we employ the non-linear autoregressive distributive lag technique recently introduced by Shin et al. (2014). The findings validate the existence of an asymmetric relationship between transport energy consumption and environmental indicators. The policymakers' prerequisites the alternative energies apart from conventional energies in the transport sector with technological innovations in transport sector energy consumption like the electronic and hybrid vehicles for a cleaner environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primarily, the current study seeks to explore the influence of financial development, economic growth, trade openness, non-renewable and renewable energy utilization on carbon dioxide (CO2) emission in Pakistan from 1990 to 2017. The findings of structural break unit root tests indicated that a few variables are stationary at the level and others integrated at the first difference. The bound F-test and Johansen cointegration tests confirmed the evidence that a long-run relationship exists among concerned variables. The long-run results explore that financial development and renewable energy penetration significantly accelerate the environmental quality, while economic growth, non-renewable energy utilization, and trade openness are responsible for deteriorating the environmental quality. The results from the short-run estimate explore that non-renewable energy utilization and trade openness significantly reduce the environmental quality while renewable energy sources are beneficial for environmental quality. Moreover, the current study discovered the unidirectional Granger causality relationship from economic growth, trade openness, non-renewable and renewable energy penetration to carbon emission in Pakistan. The outcomes of this study provide some insightful policy suggestions to overcome the detrimental effect of environmental degradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the linkages of economic freedom (ECF), energy use, and CO2 emissions in selected South Asian countries of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Annual data from 1995 to 2018 are analyzed by employing second-generation methodologies. Cross-sectional autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) is used because this method incorporates the cross-sectional dependence among the data. This work uses three models, where the dependent variables are gross domestic product (GDP), CO2 emissions, and energy use. The findings reveal that ECF and energy use contributes to more economic development. ECF is improving air quality by lowering CO2 emissions. The findings suggest that these countries need to increase the percentage of renewable energy in their energy generation mix. At the same time, there is a need to integrate ECF with environmental awareness programs. This will not only increase air quality but also increase economic growth. GDP is found to be dependent on energy use; however, increased energy use from non-renewable also contaminates the environment. Therefore, South Asian countries need to invest more in research and development projects to promote renewable energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the period 1980–2016, this study looks into the causal relations between carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, energy consumption (EC), foreign direct investment (FDI), and gross domestic product (GDP) in five South Asian countries (Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka). To achieve the research objectives, panel unit root tests, panel co-integration, autoregressive distributed lag model, and Granger causality tests are used. In the long run, GDP has a positive impact on CO2 emissions, while squared GDP has a negative impact, confirming the framework of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) in Pakistan and Sri Lanka. However, in the short run along with these two countries, Bangladesh also confirms the EKC hypothesis. Among these five countries, Bangladesh and Nepal support the pollution haven hypothesis, but India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka support the FDI halo hypothesis. The EC has a large positive impact on CO2 emissions across five countries. In the long run, the Granger causality test confirms one-way causation from EC to CO2 emissions and bidirectional causality of FDI and CO2. These countries might encourage clean energy technology through FDI without jeopardizing GDP and environmental quality. The findings of the study provide a guideline for these countries to reduce CO2 emissions, achieve a long-term green GDP, and combat global warming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary goal of this study was to examine the relationship between fossil fuel energy, electricity production from nuclear sources, renewable energy, CO2 emissions, and economic growth in Pakistan. Data ranging from 1975 to 2019 were utilized, and the stationarity of this data was verified through the unit root testing. The dynamic connections between variables were investigated by utilizing the linear autoregressive distributed lag technique. Long-run analysis results uncover that fossil fuel energy, renewable energy use, CO2 emissions, and GDP per capita have a productive relationship with economic progress in Pakistan, whereas electric power consumption, electricity produced from nuclear sources, and energy utilization have an adverse effect on economic growth. Furthermore, the consequences revealed that fossil fuel energy, renewable energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, and GDP per capita have a significant linkage to Pakistan's economic growth via short run, whereas we revealed that the variables electric power consumption, electricity produced from nuclear sources, and energy usage have an adversative linkage to Pakistan's economic growth. Feasible progressive policies are required from the Pakistani government to pay more attention for tackling the energy and power sectors' issues in terms of fulfilling the country's energy requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades, environmental degradation has become a universal challenge, and for sustainable environment quality, a true and broader proxy is vital. Pakistan is an ecological deficient country in the world, being the sixth-largest economy (population-wise). This study investigates the prime sources of environmental degradation through ecological footprint in Pakistan. The yearly time-series data spanning 1972 to 2020 is utilized for a set of regressors as fossil fuel energy consumption, trade openness, arable land, industrial share to GDP, economic growth, and population growth. We use various econometric techniques, the bounds test, ARDL (short and long run) model, FMOLS, and Granger causality test. Bounds test confirms the existence of cointegration among variables included in our model. The ARDL estimates suggest that fossil fuel energy consumption, trade openness, and population growth are the leading factors affecting the environment. Fossil fuel consumption and population growth significantly damage the environment in the short and long run. Contrasting to that, trade openness is substantial to the environment quality. The FMOLS approves the robustness of the cointegrating findings. Moreover, a unidirectional causal relationship from economic growth to the ecological footprint (GDP → EFP). And also, the ecological footprint of arable land (EFP → AL) is witnessed. At the same time, bidirectional causality is found between growth rate and fossil energy consumption (GDP ↔ FEC). Lastly, we recommend some policy options to improve environmental quality in Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For successive economic growth of any society, sustainable energy plays a pivotal role. Considering this view, developing countries are facing serious challenges of energy at the present time. However, policymakers have outlined numerous policies to satisfy energy demand but still remain incapable to fill the gap between demand and supply. At a halt, 11% of the world population lacks access to different formulae of energy supply and access. Additionally, in different time periods, distinct policies have erupted for the progress of renewable energy. It includes especially those households of the far-flung areas having no gas and electricity availability. However, the basis of this research study is to determine the significant renewable energy source for Pakistan's economy with the economic benefits such as job creation in energy sector. This research study aims in finding ways to secure energy supplies and achieving economic benefits. The research study concludes by engaging renewable energy technologies with the least operational and externality cost that is the utmost choice in the future. In policy perspective, Pakistani government should take actions in favor of renewable energy and technological innovation that necessitates biomass resources to be tied to non-sustainable prolonged investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using time series data of Pakistan from 1990 to 2019, this study explores the asymmetric effects of political instability on clean energy consumption and CO2 emissions. The results from the traditional ARDL model show that political stability lessens environmental damage by reducing CO2 emissions in the long run. However, when we used the nonlinear ARDL approach, we found that political instability not only reduces the consumption of clean energy but also leads to damage environmental quality in the long run in Pakistan,while political stability not only increases the consumption of clean energy but also helps improve environmental quality in the short run in Pakistan. Thus, macroeconomic policies to promote expansion in clean energy consumption will directly stimulate green economic growth and environmental quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last two decades, the phenomenon of green growth has gained much attention from academics and policymakers striving to find a sustainable solution to environmental problems worldwide. Technological innovation serves as a tool to abate the acute environmental crisis and continuously promote sustainable development by converting traditional economies into green economies. Pakistan is among the developing countries relying on conventional technology and energy resources to meet population and economy demands, which has led to a surge in greenhouse gases and other hazardous air pollutants. The literature exploring green growth in the Pakistani context is scant; the present study will therefore fill this gap and explore the dynamic linkage between technological innovation and ISO 14001 with green growth in Pakistan in the presence of environmental challenges such as energy consumption and population growth. A novel grey relational analysis model approach is employed to examine the interrelationship between the study parameters. Results indicate that technological innovation is significantly correlated with green growth, and ISO 14001 also shows a substantial relationship with green growth. However, among the environmental challenges, energy consumption poses a barrier to green growth development as the country's energy mix is dominated by fossil fuels as compared to renewables. The research findings produce a much-needed policy suggestion to address the environmental challenges by promoting green growth development in Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tremendous increase of greenhouse gases puts adverse effects on environmental degradation, unemployment, and economic growth. Against this backdrop, and implementing the more recent estimation approach, the present study investigates the validity of the novel environmental Phillips curve (i.e., inverse relationship between unemployment and environmental degradation) carried by Kashem and Rahman (2020). The unique contribution of this research is to examine the three environmental indicators (CO2, CH4, and ecological footprint) as a dependent variable with the same independent variables, i.e., unemployment rate, energy consumption, economic growth, foreign direct investment, and globalization, from 1975 to 2014 in Pakistan. The results validate a negative relationship of unemployment rate with CO2, CH4, and ecological footprint in the long run that proves the existence of environment Philips curve for Pakistan. However, a positive association is observed for energy consumption and CO2, CH4, and ecological footprint. The positive connection of energy consumption and environmental indicators determined that not only CO2 emissions rather CH4 and ecological footprint play an equal role in environmental degradation. Furthermore, in the long run foreign direct investment improves environmental sustainability for CO2, and ecological footprint thus proved the pollution halo hypothesis for Pakistan. Probing the effects of globalization that badly pollutes environmental sustainability. Therefore, the policymakers should focus on innovations and technological improvements to contemplate both environmental degradation and unemployment. There is a need for sudden actions for energy consumption plans in Pakistan for the nation's health, economic growth, and environmental sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study is to identify the impact of the shadow economy on renewable and nonrenewable energy consumption at aggregated and disaggregated levels over the period of 1972Q1-2018Q4 in Pakistan. This study carries nonlinear/asymmetric time series analysis such as quantile unit root test for stationary of data series, newly developed quantile cointegration (Xiao, J. Econom. 150:248–260, 2009) for existence of long-run relationships and novel quantile causality approach (Troster, Econom. Rev. 37, 850–866, 2018) are used to identify direction of causality over the quantiles. The results confirm that quantiles of shadow economy cointegrate with the quantiles of energy consumption at aggregated and disaggregated levels. The results of quantile regression show that a shadow economy has a positive and significant impact on renewable and nonrenewable energy consumption at aggregated and disaggregated levels in all quantiles starting from extreme low quantiles to extreme high quantiles. Furthermore, the results of quantile causality illustrate a unidirectional causality running from underground economy to fluctuations in renewable, nonrenewable, and total energy consumption. More specifically, disaggregated energy consumptions such as oil, gas, nuclear, hydro, and gas are also caused by shadow economy, generally in low and high tails/quantiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic expansion gives rise to modern and energy-efficient technologies and, thus, contributes to a decline in energy usage. Developing countries, including Pakistan, require tremendous efforts to sustain economic growth. However, to attain economic growth, these countries have to cope with greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other environmental problems. This research focuses primarily on the asymmetric impacts of energy consumption and economic growth on Pakistan's environmental quality. Accordingly, secondary data spanning from 1971 to 2018 was used, and carbon dioxide emission (CO2) was considered a target variable (a proxy for environmental quality), whereas energy consumption (E) and gross domestic product (GDP) as a proxy for economic growth, and trade accessibility (TR) and foreign direct investment (FDI) as control variables. The nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) approach is used to verify the asymmetric co-integration between the variables selected. Moreover, to examine data stationarity and nonlinearity, we used the Zivot–Andrews structural break unit root and BDS tests, respectively. The findings confirmed the asymmetric and symmetric co-integrations among the considered variables. In addition, the causality analysis reveals that only negative shocks to TR have an effect on CO2 emissions. Similarly, negative shocks to FDI asymmetrically cause CO2 emissions. Meanwhile, GDP symmetrically affects CO2 emissions. Finally, a neutral causal response was observed between E and CO2 emissions. These findings have policy implications in terms of environmental management and carbon neutrality, and they serve as a baseline for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to focus on Pakistan's fertilizer industry and investigate the causal relationships among environmental consciousness (ECO), green creativity (GCR), green mindfulness (GMD), and energy efficiency (EE), which are all essential mechanisms as well as circumstances that control the situation in well-developed manners. This study consists of a sample regarding four hundred and four (404) employees from seven companies by using partial least squares (PLS) and structural equation modeling (SEM) approach. The results indicate that environmental consciousness significantly and positively affects employee energy efficiency directly and indirectly in the presence of green creativity as a mediator. Moreover, the moderating effect of green mindfulness persisted only in the association between energy efficiency and green creativity. In the appropriate literature, this empirical investigation is the first of its kind which does not only provide an organized way to examine the effects of environmental consciousness on energy efficiency but also recommend the most effective means for employees and associations to embrace the best policies. This study has important policy implications for promoting clean production, clean environment, and sustainable development for developed and developing economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of information and communication technologies (ICT) positively contributes to economic growth; however, their environmental implications cannot be ignored. Therefore, it is imperative to investigate the impact of ICT, energy consumption, economic growth, and financial development on the air quality in Pakistan. Drawing on the data set from 1976 to 2018, we employed Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag model. The results revealed that there is a substantial presence of asymmetric cointegration between ICT and CO2 emissions. The empirical results unfold that positive shocks in ICT negatively affect CO2 emissions, implying that an increase in ICT brings a decrease in CO2 emission; negative shocks in ICT publicized a negative association with CO2 emissions, inferring that a decrease in ICT will bring an upsurge in CO2 emissions. Moreover, on the dark side, energy consumption and financial development degrade the environmental quality by increasing the CO2 emissions in Pakistan. Additionally, the existence of the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis in Pakistan was confirmed. Our key findings emphasize the importance of ICT development and several environmental implications in attaining the sustainable development goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A bulk of literature has examined the asymmetric impact of renewable energy consumption on CO2 emissions by using the advanced econometric approach. While the asymmetric role of renewable energy production in the CO2 equation is largely unknown, our present study quantifies the asymmetric relationship between renewable energy production, natural resources, economic progress, and CO2 emission for Pakistan by using the NARDL approach. It is found that positive change in renewable energy production has a positive effect on CO2 emissions, while a negative change in renewable energy production has a negative effect on CO2 emissions in the long run. Furthermore, a positive and negative change in natural resources contributes negatively to CO2 emissions in the long run. The results reveal that a positive change in economic progress significantly increases CO2 emissions in the long run. Based on findings, Pakistan's government should encourage local and international investors to increase their investment in the production of renewable energy by reducing environmental degradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing countries like Pakistan majorly depend on fossil fuels for achieving higher economic growth but have sloppy environmental rules and regulations in order to attract foreign direct investment (FDI). As a result, energy consumption is considered the primary cause of environmental degradation. Besides CO2 emission, environmental degradation is also associated with emission of sulfur dioxide (SO2). The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship among SO2 emissions, energy consumption, economic growth, and FDI in Pakistan. By applying the 3SLS method, study has estimated the scale effect, composition effect, and technique effect. The scale effect and technique effect findings indicated that capital stock, FDI, and SO2 emissions all had a significant impact on GDP. When the capital accumulation effects of FDI were considered, the relationship between FDI and stock of capital was found to be positive. According to the technique effect results, FDI, population density, and energy consumption were all significantly related to SO2 emissions. The study came to a conclusion with significant policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pakistan's agriculture is characterized by insecure water supply and poor irrigation practices. We investigate the economic and environmental feasibility of alternative improved irrigation technologies (IIT) by estimating the site-specific irrigation costs, groundwater anomalies, and CO2 emissions. IIT consider different energy sources including solar power in combination with changes in the irrigation method. The status quo irrigation costs are estimated to 1301 million US$ year−1, its groundwater depletion to 6.3 mm year−1 and CO2 emissions to 4.12 million t year−1, of which 96% originate from energy consumption and 4% via bicarbonate extraction from groundwater. Irrigation costs of IIT increase with all energy sources compared to the status quo, which is mainly based on diesel engine. This is because of additional variable and fixed costs for system's operation. Of these, subsidized electricity induces lowest costs for farmers with 63% extra costs followed by solar energy with 77%. However, groundwater depletion can even be reversed with 35% rise in groundwater levels via IIT. Solar powered irrigation can break down CO2 emissions by 81% whilst other energy sources boost emissions by up to 410%. Results suggest that there is an extremely opposing development between economic and ecological preferences, requiring stakeholders to negotiate viable trade-offs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dispute between economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions is one of the major challenges of the twenty-first century. The central issue of the emerging economies revolves around the decoupling of economic growth and the rising carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. This study examines the decoupling the CO2 emissions from the economic growth through the employment of the Tapio decoupling index and decomposition of CO2 emissions into its pre-determined factors through the Log Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) decomposition technique for Pakistan, India, and China (PIC) for a time span of 1990–2014. The findings of the Tapio elasticity analysis depict that in a few years, environmental impact has been seen to be decoupled from the economic growth in the respective PIC countries. However, relatively Pakistan experienced expensive negative decoupling; India mostly experienced weak decoupling and expensive coupling, while China exhibited weak decoupling in multiple years. In addition, the analysis of Tapio decoupling elasticity showed that energy intensity is the key factor supporting the decoupling in PIC countries, while population, affluence (GDP per capita) and energy structure have weakened the progress of decoupling. Furthermore, the analysis of the LMDI decomposition suggested that population, energy structure and affluence in PIC countries increase the CO2 emissions, while energy intensity reduces CO2 emissions, while mixed effects are reflected by carbon intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The manufacturing sector is the backbone for the development of an economy. Numerous studies investigated the impact of aggregative energy consumption on environmental degradation by using typical econometric techniques. To correct this gap, our study uses energy consumption and environmental degradation only in the manufacturing sector of Pakistan for the period 1985 to 2018. Our study also demonstrates the symmetric and asymmetric behaviour of energy consumption with carbon emissions by using a recently developed methodology by Shin et al. (2014). The findings of linear autoregressive distributive lag model shows that energy consumption and financial development intensify environmental degradation, while foreign direct investment and globalization mitigate environmental degradation that leads to validate pollution halo hypotheses in Pakistan. However, non-linear autoregressive distributive lag results confirm the asymmetric behaviour of energy consumption with co2 emission. This study recommends the policies for policymakers in Pakistan to consider asymmetric behaviour of energy consumption as well as the installation of renewable energy sources and technological improvements in the industrial sector needed to enhance environmental sustainability. Further, there is a need to enhance globalization and foreign direct investment for Pakistan to achieve its environmental targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies have quantified the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with energy consumption, agriculture value added, food crop production, forest covered area, and forest production in various countries. However, past studies have ignored the long-term and short-term effects of these factors on CO2. This study used data from 1980 to 2018 and applied the autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) technique to test long-run and short-run effects of these factors on CO2 emission in the Pakistani context. The results revealed that in short-run food crop production, forest covered area and forest production have capacity to reduce CO2 emission. However, in long run, energy consumption and agriculture value added along with food crop production, forest covered area, and forest production are negatively and significantly related to CO2 emission which shows that these sectors, in long run, have capacity to mitigate emissions. Additionally, results also show that food crop production and forest covered area are more effective to reduce CO2 emission as compared to other sectors. The robustness of the results was supported by using additional models and tests. This study provides scholars with valuable insights and also helps government authorities and policymakers to develop comprehensive strategies to reduce carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing countries are enthusiastically on the road to economic progress and economic openness, which is proved to be a silver bullet for them. However, it has put their environmental quality at stake. This study examines whether economic openness and electricity consumption matter for environmental deterioration by controlling for the influence of economic progress. For this, we have used time series frequency data of Pakistan from 1971 to 2016 and employed the state-of-the-art dynamic autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) simulation model. The model has the advantage over traditional ARDL in determining the positive and negative environmental deterioration variations induced by economic openness, electricity consumption, and economic progress. The main findings are as follows: Firstly, electricity consumption in both long and short run positively and significantly influenced CO2 emissions, while long-run influence exceeded that of short run. Secondly, economic progress validated an environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis and thus limited the environmental degradation. Thirdly, economic openness showed an insignificant influence on CO2 emissions both in the long and short run. Based on research findings, it is suggested that economic progress and economic openness are not the direct culprits to deteriorate a developing country's environmental condition like Pakistan; rather, electricity consumption remained the key role player. Therefore, the transition from fossil-based electricity consumption to renewable energy consumption would provide a sustainable pathway towards achieving sustainable economic openness in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims twofold; first, to analyze the effects of traditional energy, renewable energy, ecological footprint, urbanization, transportation on carbon dioxide emission (CO2), and second to investigate the association between the emission of the CO2 and temperature over Pakistan. The present investigation utilized long-term series data from 1970 to 2018 and employed the autoregressive distributed lag model to examine the relationship between modeled variables. Moreover, this investigation employed fully modified ordinary least-squares and dynamic ordinary least-square model to confirm the robustness of the results. The study found an insignificant impact of traditional energy, renewable energy, and ecological footprint on CO2 in the short-run period. However, in the long run, traditional energy, the ecological footprint has significant and positive, while renewable energy has a negative and significant association with CO2. Moreover, the study found a significant impact of urbanization and transportation on CO2 emission into short and long-run periods. The results indicate that impact of CO2 emission, urbanization and transportation on average temperature in Pakistan is positive and significant in short-run as well as in long-run period. This research indicates that appropriate policies should be devised for the energy sector like Government should discourage traditional consumption of energy and encourage the consumption of renewable energy in the industrial sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerns over the observed rising trend towards carbon emissions and the resulting adverse effects of climate change on human activities are the main challenges facing human beings. This study examines household sector's non-renewables and biomass energy consumption magnitude and how much carbon is emitted from non-renewable and biomass energy in Pakistan by using the PSLM 2018–2019 survey. In addition, using STIRPAT model, this study investigates the effect of income, household size, and clean energy on non-renewables and biomass energy choices of the household sector. The results show that 77% of households rely on the consumption of biomass energy. An average household uses firewood at the largest magnitude of 142.06 kg month−1 and kerosene usage at the smallest magnitude of 4.08 kg month−1 among non-renewables and biomass energy choices. The largest contributor to carbon on average is dang cake and its magnitude of carbon emissions is 0.87 tons household−1 year−1 followed by coal with a magnitude of 0.76 tons household−1 year−1. LPG is the lowest contributor to carbon and its carbon emission magnitude is 0.04 tons household−1 year−1. The income impact finding indicates that LPG, kerosene, firewood, and dang cake are necessities, whereas coal is an inferior commodity. The coefficient of household size indicates that large household uses firewood and dang cake, and small one uses LPG and kerosene. As such, households prefer to reduce non-renewable and biomass consumption by increasing clean energy. Therefore, the study suggests that to reduce non-renewable and biomass energy consumption and follow clean energy provision at household level without compromising on environmental quality. The rise in household income and reducing household size could also be a valid policy option for reducing the non-renewable and biomass energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study seeks to investigate the sector-level energy consumption of oil and natural gas and to explore the linkage between economic growth, households, agriculture, industry, power, fertilizers, and commercial sector in Pakistan for the period of 1980–2016. The energy sector of Pakistan is facing severe crisis from the last few years due to inadequate production and supply. Long-lasting deficits of natural gas and oil, the two supreme types of fuel in Pakistan, had detrimental consequences for the growth as well as for the economic development. An autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) method and Granger causality test under vector error correction model (VECM) were employed to check the association among the variables. Furthermore, the innovative accounting method was used to investigate the responsiveness of each variable to another within the study framework. Empirical results show long-run association among the variables, as oil consumption in the agriculture and power sector show a positive effect on Pakistan's economic growth. Similarly, energy consumption from natural gas in the households and fertilizers as well as in the industry sector has had a constructive association with economic growth. In contrast, energy consumption from oil in the households and industry sectors has adverse association with economic growth, while natural gas consumption in the commercial sector has negative linkage with economic growth. Possible steps should be taken by the Government of Pakistan to enhance the production of oil and natural gas from other alternatives to meet the requirements of these sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the asymmetric effects of both aggregate and disaggregate forms of energy consumption along with economic growth on environmental quality for Pakistan covering the period from 1971 to 2014. We have employed unit root test with breaks for stationary checks, BDS test for nonlinearity check and nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) approach for assessing the asymmetric co-integrating relationships among the variables by decomposing them into positive and negative shocks. The empirical findings for aggregate consumption reveal that only negative shocks have a significant impact on ecological footprint. Similarly, different sources of energy consumption have diverse asymmetric effects on ecological footprint. The positive (negative) shocks to oil and gas consumption increase (decrease) ecological footprint. Thus, an increase in oil consumption has a deteriorating impact on environmental quality while a decrease in gas consumption has a favorable impact on environmental quality. The asymmetric relationships also hold between coal consumption, electricity consumption, and ecological footprint. The positive shocks to coal and electricity consumption are negatively related with environmental quality while negative shocks are positively related with environmental quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the symmetric and asymmetric effects of the shadow economy on clean energy and air pollution of South Asian countries over the period 1991–2019. The short-run ARDL findings for the clean energy model suggest that shadow economy increases clean energy consumption in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, whereas this effect is negative for India and insignificant for other countries. The long-run results indicate the adverse impact only for India and the effects of tax revenue on clean energy are positively significant in Sri Lanka while negatively signiicant in Nepal and Bangladesh. Institutional quality significantly increases clean energy in Pakistan, India, and Nepal. However, in the case of Pakistan and Nepal, institutional quality deteriorated the environmental quality. The results for the pollution model confer that shadow economy increases emissions in Pakistan, decreases in Bangladesh and Nepal, and has no effect in India and Sri Lanka. The nonlinear ARDL results reveal that the positive components of the shadow economy significantly increase clean energy consumption only in Pakistan; however, the negative components of the shadow economy are negatively significant in all countries except Sri Lanka and Nepal. However, the negative component of the informal sector of the economy reduces CO2 emissions in India and increases CO2 emissions in Bangladesh and Nepal. The results offer important policy implications for achieving clean energy and better environmental quality in South Asian countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]