“…Besides, previous studies have identified various determinants of CO 2 e. These factors include financial development (Ahmad et al 2018b ), technological innovation (Ahmad et al 2019a ), fiscal decentralization (Du and Sun 2021 ), freight and passenger transportation (Godil et al 2020 ), economic growth (Nathaniel et al 2021d ; Solarin et al 2021 ), institutional quality (Wawrzyniak and Doryń 2020 ), urbanization (Ahmad and Zhao 2018 ; Nathaniel et al 2021c ), exports (Anser et al 2021 ), renewable energy consumption (Nathaniel et al 2021b ), corruption (Ren et al 2021 ), public-private partnership investment in energy (Raza et al 2021 ), aggregate consumption (Ahmad and Khattak 2020 ), human capital (Asghar et al 2020 ), shadow economy (Sohail et al 2021 ), higher education (Li et al 2021 ), imports (Adewuyi and Awodumi 2020 ), gross fixed capital formation (Nathaniel and Adeleye 2021 ), energy demand (Vo and Zaman 2020 ), foreign direct investment (Rahman et al 2019b ), green technology innovation (Meirun et al 2021 ), democratic transition (Mao 2018 ), inflow of remittances (Ahmad et al 2019a ; Khan et al, 2020 ), tourism (Aziz et al 2020 ), international cooperation (Chen et al 2020 ), financial instability (Baloch et al 2018 ), fuel tax (Akkaya and Hepsag 2021 ), income inequality (Guo et al 2020 ), premature deindustrialization (Ullah et al 2020 ), information and communication technologies (Anser et al 2021 ), natural resources rents (Nathaniel 2021 ; Nathaniel et al 2021e ), military expenses (Isiksal 2021 ), globalization (Sharif et al 2020 ), real interest rate (Isiksal et al 2019 ), trade openness (Iheonu et al 2021 ; Nathaniel 2020 ), commercial policies (Jiang et al 2021a ), globalization (Nathaniel et al 2021a ), and nonrenewable energy (Nathaniel and Iheonu 2019 ).…”