Caring for the environment: How human capital, natural resources, and economic growth interact with environmental degradation in Pakistan? A dynamic ARDL approach

Abstract

Sustainability concerns are increasing globally. Besides, in Pakistan, these concerns are increasing day by day due to lack of education as well as redundancy among human capital, depletion of natural resources and economic growth can lead to pose severe threats to the environment. To address this concern, this study examines the phenomena that in what way natural resources, human capital, and economic growth affect two important indicators i.e., ecological footprint and carbon emission in Pakistan from 1985 to 2018 by using the dynamic autoregressive distribution lag (DARDL) approach. The outcomes of the analysis indicate that in the long run human capital and natural resource has a negative link with carbon emission whereas economic growth has a positive link with carbon emission. On the other side, in the short run, human capital and economic growth have a positive link with carbon emission while natural resources have a negative link with carbon emission. Moreover, in the long and short-run human capital and economic growth has a positive link with ecological footprint whereas natural resources have a negative link with the ecological footprint. However, the results of this study also revealed the presence of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) in Pakistan. Moreover, creating awareness among the citizens together with governmental regulatory pressures might help in solving the problems related to the environment resulting in preserving the sustainability of future generations in Pakistan.