The dynamic impacts of CO2 emissions from different sources on Pakistan’s economic progress: a roadmap to sustainable development

Abstract

Carbon dioxide emissions have been the primary source of extreme environmental pollution and have detrimental consequences on human life, irrespective of an economy being developed or underdeveloped. For the developing economies, in particular, it is imperative to reduce such emissions in order to sustain the growth of the respective economies. However, for designing appropriate emission reduction policies, it is appropriate to identify the sectors which contribute the most to carbon dioxide emissions and dampen the growth of overall economy. Against this background, the key intention of this study was to examine the influence of carbon dioxide emissions generated from various sources on the economic progress in Pakistan between 1971 and 2017. This study is important for Pakistan to sustain its economic progress and enable the nation to comply with commitments of the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals. The econometric analysis conducted in this study considers a nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag model which is applied to ascertain the short-and long-run economic growth impacts associated with positive and negative shocks to CO2 emissions generated from various sources. The choice of this model is driven by its capacity to perform an asymmetric analysis which is relevant for suitable policy-making purposes. The overall results, in a nutshell, reveal that carbon dioxide emissions from Pakistan's transportation sector influence the country's economic progress. Positive shocks to such carbon dioxide emissions are originate to reduce economic progress in the long run while negative shocks are evidenced to boost economic growth both in the short and long run. In contrast, carbon dioxide emissions from other major sectors are found to be ineffective in influencing Pakistan's economic growth both in the short and long run. Hence, keeping into consideration the prospects of attaining sustainable economic growth, the Pakistan government must prioritize the implementation of CO2 emissions-inhibiting policies within the transportation sector. Simultaneously, the traditional fossil fuel dependency within this sector should also be phased out.

Modelling the Macroeconomic Determinants of Carbon Dioxide Emissions in the G-7 Countries: The Roles of Technological Innovation and Institutional Quality Improvement

“…Environmental quality is said to be determined along with the growth of the economy (Rehman et al, 2021a). It has been acknowledged in the literature that EG can impose both favourable and damaging effects on the environment (Chien et al, 2021;Rehman et al, 2021b).…”

Driving Factors of CO2 Emissions: Further Study Based on Machine Learning

“…Greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions, are viewed as one of the core causes of climate change, and it has become one of the most important environmental problems in the world (Rehman et al (2021a)). At the press conference on WMO State of the Climate 2019 Report, António Guterres, UN Chief, reported that 2019 was the second hottest year on record during his opening remarks.…”

“…Carbon dioxide emissions have been the primary source of extreme environmental pollution (Rehman et al (2021a)). With the rapidly growing agriculture and farm mechanization, agricultural sector has become a factor in the surge in CO 2 emissions and other greenhouse gases in the globe (Rehman et al (2021b)).…”

“…Economic, social, and environmental suitability are the three core pillars of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) declarations (Rehman et al (2021a)). In September 2019, Heads of State and Government gathered in the SDG Summit at the United Nations Headquarters in New York to follow up and comprehensively review progress in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).…”

“…The summit resulted in the adoption of the Political Declaration and its core message is to take action to respond to climate emergencies. Relevant research shows that if economic growth and climate and environmental sustainability are achieved at the same time, emission reduction policies need to be incorporated into the economic growth policies of various countries , Li et al (2021), Rehman et al (2021a)).…”