Promoting sustainable development: Evaluating the influence of natural resources, high-tech export and corruption on CO2 emissions in developing economies

Abstract

Natural resources accelerate climate change resulting in exacerbating the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, ecosystem disruption, and rising sea levels, with significant consequences for both human and natural systems. The extraction and combustion of fossil fuels, such as oil, gas, and coal, release vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2). The present article explores the impact of natural resource rents (NRR), export of high-technology (High-Tech), renewable energy (RE), Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and corruption (CR) on CO2 emissions for a panel of 141 developing economies between 2000 and 2021. The Westerlund co-integration test confirmed a long-run co-integration connection among the study variables. Based on the Method of Moment Quantiles Regression (MMQREG), renewable energy (RE) and control of corruption (CR) are the two key factors that can effectively reduce CO2 emissions. Contrarily, the outcomes illustrate that High-Tech, GDP, and natural resource rents (NRR) increase CO2 emissions. Moreover, the robustness checks of Fully-Modified Ordinary Least Square (FMOLS) and Dynamic Ordinary Least Square (DOLS), Canonical Co-integration Regression (CCR), and the Augmented Mean Group (AMG) confirmed and supported the main outcomes of MMQREG. These findings have significant implications for sustainable environment. Consequently, most energy utilization required in developing economies is presently met by the use of fossil fuels, exploitation of natural resource rents (NRR) and industrialization policies will be at odds with a sustainable environment.