Does ecological footprint matter for the shape of the environmental Kuznets curve? Evidence from European countries
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Does ecological footprint matter for the shape of the environmental Kuznets curve? Evidence from European countries Muhammad Saqib 1
&
François Benhmad 1
Received: 8 July 2020 / Accepted: 2 November 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The study empirically examines the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypotheses by investigating the relationship between ecological footprint, economic growth, energy consumption, and population growth. The study uses ecological footprint as a measurement of environmental degradation which is a more comprehensive indicator and considers all factors responsible for environmental degradation. Keeping in view the problem of cross-sectional dependence, a more efficient estimation tools like pooled mean group and augmented mean group have been used to estimate the long-run parameters for 22 European countries from 1995 through 2015. Results of the study found a quadratic relationship between income growth and ecological footprint and support validity of EKC. Energy consumption positively contributes to ecological footprint, while population growth plays no significant role in determining environmental quality. The long-run estimates of the study are validated through robustness analysis by employing dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) and fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) techniques. Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) panel non-causality test indicated that there is a unidirectional causality running from GDP to ecological footprint while bidirectional causality running between energy consumption and ecological footprint. The study identified that population growth in European region is not a severe issue as compared to intensive energy consumption. Policies which restrict emission, deforestation, and water pollution should be adopted for sustainability of environment. Keywords Ecological footprint . Income growth . EKC . CO2 emission . Panel data . Pooled mean group
Introduction The theory of the environmental Kuznets curve got attention in the 1990s when the world realized that the earth’s average temperature is dramatically increasing and causing global climate change. In the meantime, Rio Earth Summit 1992 was held, in Brazil, bringing together delegations from more than 150 countries paired with representatives from nongovernmental organizations around the world. One of the most important outcomes of the summit was the adoption of Editorial Responsibility: Nicholas Apergis * Muhammad Saqib [email protected] François Benhmad [email protected] 1
University of Montpellier, Montpellier Research in Economics, 34960 Montpellier, France
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to understand well what climate change is and how to tackle it. Climate change was declared as a result of human economic activities and rapid industrialization, because these activities are the basic reasons for greenhouses gases like methane and CO2 (Brock and Taylor 2005). In recent days,
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