Environmental cost of natural resources utilization and economic growth: Can China shift some burden through globalization for sustainable development?

Abstract

AbstractThis study aims to investigate the relationship between CO2 emissions in China and its prospective determinants, namely economic growth, globalization, financial development, and natural resources during the period from 1980 to 2017. We present more detailed analyses across multiple econometric approaches within a multivariate system, e.g., the Bayer‐Hanck combined cointegration approach, the ARDL bounds test approach, ARDL estimates in short run and long run, robustness check by cointegration regressions (i.e., FMOLS, DOLS, CCR), and Granger causality approach in the frequency domain. Our results show that economic growth and natural resources have a positive impact on CO2 emissions in China, although globalization contributes to improving its environmental quality. Meanwhile, there is no statistical evidence that CO2 emissions in China could be affected by financial development. The causality analysis reveals that globalization, economic growth and natural resources all lead to CO2 emissions in the long run, while financial development only causes the short‐run CO2 emissions, which further demonstrate our findings. Such findings are meaningful for policymakers to achieve the sustainable development in China.