Towards the vision of going green in South Asian region: The role of technological innovations, renewable energy and natural resources in ecological footprint during globalization mode

Abstract

In order to achieve the objectives of 27th Paris Climate Conference (COP-27), this study aims to inspect the multifaceted interaction between natural resources, technological innovation, forest area, globalization, renewable energy, and ecological footprint of six South Asian countries from 1990 to 2020 of diminishing carbon emissions and encourage ecological sustainability. The long-term experiential estimations estimated from the battery of second-generation methods, which tackled other econometric estimation problems such as heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependency. The empirical outcomes discovered that natural resources and globalization process in South Asian region significantly increase the level of ecological footprint in the long-run. Conversely, technological innovations, forest area, and renewable energy upsurge environmental sustainability by reducing ecological footprint in the and long-run. Moreover, the interaction of natural resources with technological innovation, forest area, and renewable energy also adds in curtailing the level of ecological footprint and aid in achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 13. Based on the estimated findings, substantial policy recommendations are suggested like improving the extraction of natural resources, promoting energy efficiency, investment in energy technologies, and increasing the deployment of renewable energy sources to increase technological invention and achieve the goal of a net-zero-emissions.