Ecological footprint, energy use, trade, and urbanization linkage in Indonesia

Abstract

Many studies have investigated the energy-environment nexus for Indonesia using carbon emissions to proxy environmental quality, while totally ignoring ecological footprint which is a more reliable measure of environmental quality. Factors like urbanization and energy consumption may increase the ecological footprint since ecological distortions are mainly human-induced. This study explores the effect of energy use, urbanization, trade, and economic growth on the environment which is captured by ecological footprint. The findings indicate that urbanization, economic growth, and energy consumption increase environmental degradation, while trade deteriorates it in the long run. Trade reduces environmental quality in the short run, while economic growth, energy use, and urbanization show consistent result with their long-run outcomes. Further findings reveal a unidirectional causality from economic growth to ecological footprint, and from urbanization to energy use. Therefore, policies to abate emissions, curtail urban anomaly and uphold a sustainable environment are extensively discussed.