Nexus between trade, CO₂ emissions, renewable energy, and health expenditure in Pakistan

Abstract

As a result of the recent energy crisis and rapid industrialization in Pakistan, significant attention has turned toward alternative energy resources, CO 2 emissions, and healthrelated issues. The adoption of renewable energies will not only accomplish the energy demand in the economy but will also provide a healthy environment. Therefore, it is essential to understand the linkages between trade, renewable energy, CO 2 emissions, and health expenditures with a special focus on an emerging economy like Pakistan. This study used time series data from the 1998-2017 period and adopted the simultaneous equation approach for empirical analysis. The results show that an increase in trade volume positively contributes to the amount of CO 2 emissions and, as a result, CO 2 increases health expenditures. Conversely, renewable energy has a negative association with health expenditures and CO 2 emission, signifying the importance of renewable energy in enhancing environmental quality and reducing health expenditures, which are adversely affected due to CO 2 emissions. The empirical findings suggest that the government of Pakistan needs proper policy guidelines for renewable energy adoption in the industrial sector and that such guidelines can be further accommodated and adjusted in other determinants of the economy.

Modeling Trade Openness and Life Expectancy in China

“…CO 2 has a negative and significant effect on life expectancy at 1% level, which implies that CO 2 emissions have adverse implications for human health that lead to lower life expectancy. This study supports previous findings such as Ullah et al 7 , Ullah et al 8 , Hansen and Selte 44 , Apergis et al 45 , Ullah et al 7 and Ullah et al 8 , 46 Trade-in second regime positively affects life expectancy at 1% level of significance, which implies that trade activities could improve the income of the people that further use to maintain a good living standard and adopt a healthy lifestyle which increases life expectancy. Besides the positive effect of trade on life expectancy trade could also contribute to CO 2 emissions may adversely affect human health and life expectancy.…”

“…There is unidirectional causality from trade openness to CO 2 emissions, which confirms our switching regression results. Besides, this implies that trade openness leads to the industrial expansion that emits a high volume of CO 2 , the CO 2 and trade results are supported by past studies including Ullah et al 7 and Ullah et al 8 and argued that trade activities lead to CO 2 emissions due to industrial and export sector expansion. A unidirectional causality is found from GDP to life expectancy that indicates this supports our bassline findings and that per capita income causes the life expectancy.…”

“… 5 , 6 The scale effect represents the increase in CO 2 emissions as a result of trade liberalization and the rise of industrial production, especially in the export sector industries. 7 , 8 The composition effect arises due to change in the production pattern and comparative advantage which implies that industries specialize in those products in which the country has a comparative advantage. The technique effect is the final channel through which trade increases CO 2 emissions and it indicates that post-trade openness countries change production patterns towards more technological modes, consequently leading to higher CO 2 emissions in the economy.…”

Does environment quality and public spending on environment promote life expectancy in China? Evidence from a nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag approach

“…1 The persistent environmental degradation requires an increase in public spending on the environment, which has a positive impact on the different health indicators including life expectancy. 2,3 Therefore, this study assesses the impact of public spending on the environment and environmental quality on life expectancy.…”

“…The rapid industrialization as a result of trade liberalization, urbanization, a decline of groundwater systems, waterways, atmosphere, ecosystems and deforestation put immense pressure on environmental quality 1 . The persistent environmental degradation requires an increase in public spending on the environment, which has a positive impact on the different health indicators including life expectancy 2 3 Therefore, this study assesses the impact of public spending on the environment and environmental quality on life expectancy.…”