Assessing the impacts of ageing and natural resource extraction on carbon emissions: A proposed policy framework for European economies

Abstract

Given the rise in ageing population and rising globalization, the European nations are facing difficulties in encountering the climate action and ascertaining energy security. For diffusing the energy innovations and curtailing natural resource extraction, with an objective of reducing carbon emissions, the existing policy framework in these nations might need a reorientation, and there comes the role of the study. This study recommends a policy framework for exploring the effect of natural resource extraction and age dependence on carbon emissions in top-5 European countries (EU-5) for the period of 1990–2017. By applying the Second Generation Panel Modeling approach, the empirical results indicate that the associations of carbon emissions with natural resource extraction, globalization index, and economic growth and ageing population follow an inverted U-shaped relationship, in keeping with the framework of Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. Based on the findings of the study, a multipronged Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) framework has been designed, and through this framework, SDG 7, SDG 13, and thereafter SDG 8 have been evaluated. While these three SDGs are the central focus of the study, the SDG framework has also suggested a way to evaluate several tangential SDGs.