Management of natural resources and material pricing: Global evidence

Abstract

Material pricing is the viable sustainable policy instrument through which the United Nations sustainable development agenda, COP24 agreement and Paris protocol for convention of climate change largely be achieved with advancement in clean energy technologies. This study is in line with the stated theme and examined the role of material pricing, ores & metal exports, and natural resource rents in the environmental sustainability agenda for low (L), middle (M), high (H) income countries, and world (W) aggregated countries data set, for a period of 1975–2017. The study further assessed the role of material pricing in mitigation of carbon emissions, achieving energy efficiency and amplify World per capita income for the next 10 years time period. This would be helpful to devise resource conservation policies across the globe. The results show that material pricing increases carbon emissions and decreases energy efficiency that negatively effect on World income, while ores & metal exports achieved energy efficiency via the channel of mitigating global carbon emissions. Mineral rents, oil rents, and natural gas rents verified the ‘carbon-resource curse’ hypothesis under materials pricing. The income per capita, FDI inflows, and trade liberalization policies support to achieve energy efficiency on the cost of high carbon emissions, which verified the ‘pollution haven’ hypothesis across the globe. The study verified the long-run and inter-temporal relationship between the candidate variables for the next 10 years time period. The study concludes that material pricing and emissions trading system both policies are imperative in resource constraint environment to mitigate carbon emissions stock. The advancement in clean energy technologies is the key to regulate environmental policies for promoting sustainable production and consumption across the globe.