Transport Sector Emissions and Environmental Sustainability: Empirical Evidence from GCC Economies

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This paper analyses the asymmetric effects of air transport on CO2 emissions from transport in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. The analysis utilises CO2 emissions from transport, which are more relevant and critical for assessing the environmental performance of transport. Moreover, the current paper has examined this relationship with further macroeconomic variables within the Gulf Cooperation Council context. This paper uses a significant sample of six nations and spans an extensive period from 1990 to 2020. The second-generation Auto Regressive Distributed Lag model was applied to enable the examination of regional heterogeneity and the assessment of transport’s effect on CO2 emissions across several countries. The intensity of environmental degradation may differ among the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, hence, environmental policies should include trends in transport emissions. Long-term estimates based on the ARDL technique suggest that energy consumption, economic growth, and air travel exacerbate the ratio of CO2 emissions from transport and pollution levels. The results can be utilised to develop a transport-related environmental strategy that aligns with the sustainable development goals. The paper proposes strategies for achieving a sustainable environment and energy future.