Environment-related Technologies Research Articles

Do environment-related technologies, urbanization, trade openness, and income impact energy consumption and intensity?

Do environment-related technologies, urbanization, trade openness, and income impact energy consumption and intensity?

Exploring the drivers of ecological footprint: Impacts of road transportation infrastructure, transport tax, and environment technologies

This study explores the dynamic effects of road transportation infrastructure, transport taxes, economic growth, trade openness, and environmental technologies on the ecological footprint using three quantile regression techniques: Simultaneous, Powell, and Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR). These variables are selected for their significant influence on both economic outcomes and environmental sustainability, reflecting the interconnectedness of transportation systems, government policies, and technological advancements in shaping ecological impacts. Based on panel data from 19 European countries between 1995 and 2020, the results reveal that investments in road infrastructure and higher transport taxes contribute to reducing ecological footprint. At the middle and high quantiles, advancements in environment-related technologies further decrease the ecological footprint, whereas trade openness tends to worsen ecological quality. Importantly, the relationship between GDP and the ecological footprint follows an inverted U-shape, confirming the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis across all quantiles, which suggests that economic growth can support environmental sustainability in the long run. These findings are validated by robustness checks using fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS), dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS), and canonical cointegration regression (CCR) models. Key policy implications include the need for targeted investments in road infrastructure and transport tax strategies, tailored to national contexts, along with technology-driven strategies to curb environmental degradation. Lastly, the panel causality test reveals unidirectional causality from economic growth, road transportation infrastructure, and environment-related technologies to ecological footprint, highlighting their significance as short-term contributors to environmental improvement.

Innovativeness of the European economies in the context of the modified European Innovation Scoreboard

Research background: Innovation is an important determinant of economic development, and its importance is growing with the advancement of digitization and the development of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In turn, the assessment of the innovativeness of a country’s economy affects its investment attractiveness and international image. Purpose of this study: Given the factors presented above, the main aim of this study is to explore and compare the innovativeness of European economies in the context of the modified European Innovation Scoreboard. Methods: To achieve this goal, the authors propose two key modifications of the existing innovation assessment methodology contained in the European Innovation Scoreboard. The first concerns the principles of the normalization of assessment indicators and aims to eliminate extreme assessment values. The second proposes to remove the indicators which are difficult to measure, subjective, and not always useful: (1) those related to sustainable development (resource productivity; emissions of fine particulates; and environment-related technologies) and (2) those that take into account only small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs introducing product innovations; SMEs introducing business process innovations; and innovative SMEs collaborating with others). Findings & value added: An alternative approach to assessing the innovativeness of the analyzed countries — as proposed by the authors — resulted in changes in the ranking of countries in relation to the European Innovation Scoreboard, but the changes were not significant. The major changes concerned Serbia (down four places), Belgium (down two places), Hungary (up three places), and Poland (up two places). In addition, five countries moved up one place in the ranking (the UK, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Estonia, Slovenia, Spain, and Slovakia), and five lost one place in the ranking (Norway, Italy, Portugal, Greece, and Croatia). Thirteen countries had no changes. The obtained results allowed us to conclude that the countries with the best and the worst innovativeness maintained the assessment level regardless of changes in the methodology of its implementation. The objectification of rules had the strongest impact on the countries in the middle of the ranking. This study draws attention to the problem of the subjectivity of the innovation rankings. It has also been documented that modifying the selection of evaluation criteria may change the final position in the ranking, which, in the case of emerging and developing economies, may affect investor assessment and economic growth opportunities. Such considerations are important because they are outside the often uncritical mainstream approach to the assessment of the innovativeness of economies. The conclusions imply the need for a multisource analysis of innovation and a critical look at the proposed methodologies.

How Does Nuclear Energy Affect Environmental Pollution? Evidence from the United States

Research Originality: Nuclear power plant installation activities, which have gained momentum since the 1970s, have made the use of nuclear energy widespread, and especially the US ranks first in the world in the nuclear energy use. This article contributes to the existing literature on environmental economics by incorporating environmental technologies and globalization into the investigation of the impact of nuclear energy on environmental pollution. Research Objectives: The aim of this study is to analyze the effects of nuclear energy consumption, environmental technologies and globalization on environmental pollution in the US.Research Methods: The paper use ARDL approach with the data of 1970-2018 period. Empirical Results: According to the findings, nuclear energy consumption negatively affects environmental quality in the US both in the short and long run. On the contrary, while environment-related technologies contribute positively to environmental quality with a reducing effect on carbon footprint in the long run. Also, globalization has an insignificant effect on environment in both short and long run.Implications: It is thought that environmental quality will improve as a result of supporting environmental technologies and exchanging nuclear energy with renewable energy sources in the US.JEL Classification: Q43, C32How to Cite:Atay Polat, M., Savranlar, B., Arslan, F. (2024). How Does Nuclear Energy Affect Environmental Pollution? Evidence from US. Etikonomi, 23(2), 511 – 526. https://doi.org/10.15408/etk.v23i2.37692.

Enhancing climate action in OECD countries: the role of environmental policy stringency for energy transitioning to a sustainable environment

Climate change affects the world economy, environment, and human well-being, jeopardizing overall sustainability. The escalating impacts of climate change emphasize the necessity to assess the moderating influence of environmental policy stringency (EPS) on the association of energy transition (ET) and GHG emissions from 1990 to 2020 across 36 OECD countries. Further, this study incorporates the direct impact of energy transition (ET), environmental-related technology (ERTs), green innovation (INV), and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on GHG emission. For this purpose, study employs an extensive range of econometric techniques, including DOLS, FMOLS, CCR, and MMQR approaches to evaluate data attributes. The findings of MMQR demonstrate that interaction of ET*EPS contributes to lower GHG emissions from −0.271% to −0.300% across all quantiles (20th to 80th). This indicates that the implementation of environmental policies fosters adoption of energy transitions to mitigate the negative effects of climate change, particularly to reduce GHG emissions. Further, environmental-related technologies (ERTs) and green innovation (INV) decrease GHG emissions by 0.15%–0.13% and 0.967%–2.049%, respectively, across all quantiles, thus encouraging environmental sustainability. The heterogeneous effect of ERTs is due to varying levels of adoption of environmental technologies in sample countries. The findings highlight the crucial need for integrating environmental policy strictness and energy transition measures to effectively mitigate GHG emissions. It highlights the significance of adaptive, responsive policies that are in line with SDGs 7 & 13, which concentrate on sustainable energy practices and integrated climate action in OECD economies.Graphical

Green Innovation and Energy Efficiency: Moderating Effect of Institutional Quality Based on the Threshold Model

AbstractRecent studies demonstrated that green innovation and environment-related technologies reduce energy intensity and improve energy efficiency, contributing to the reduction of carbon emissions. However, the existing studies employ linear estimation methods to examine the relationship between green innovation and energy intensity and do not consider the indirect implications of institutional quality for the effect of green technology on energy intensity. Institutional quality is found to be an essential driver of innovation, and countries may need to achieve at least a minimum level of institutional quality to promote green innovation and improve their energy intensity. To test this hypothesis, this paper examines the relationship between energy intensity and green innovation using a panel dataset from 72 countries between 1996 and 2017 and a panel threshold model when institutional quality is considered a threshold variable. The findings highlight that green innovation reduces the energy intensity if and only if countries surpass a certain threshold of institutional quality. Therefore, countries need to improve their institutional quality to promote green innovation and benefit from green technologies in improving their energy intensity.

Moderating roles of technological innovation and economic complexity in financial development-environmental quality nexus of the BRICS economies

The aspects of globalization are certainly not without economic-related opportunities especially in the developing countries such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS). By employing the cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lag among other empirical approaches over the period 1995–2017, the following critical results are presented by the investigation. Economic complexity, technological innovation, and financial development all yield desirable outlook toward carbon emission mitigation in the countries while economic growth further shows short- and long-run detrimental effect on environmental quality. Moreover, the combined effect of financial development and economic complexity has no significant effect on carbon emission in the short- and long-run while also neutralizing the direct environmental effect of financial development. Additionally, technological innovation moderate financial development to further mitigate carbon emission, thus justifying the direct and indirect environmental effects of technological innovation. Meanwhile, negative environmental effect of economic growth remained unabated in the entire scenario. This result emphasizes the role of environmental-related technologies transfer in improving the bloc's environmental sustainability.

From black to green: Quantifying the impact of economic growth, resource management, and green technologies on CO2 emissions

In an exploration of environmental concerns, this groundbreaking research delves into the relationship between GDP per capita, coal rents, forest rents, mineral rents, oil rents, natural gas rents, fossil fuels, renewables, environmental tax and environment-related technologies on CO2 emissions in 30 highly emitting countries from 1995 to 2021 using instrumental-variables regression Two-Stage least squares (IV-2SLS) regression and two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimates. Our results indicate a significant positive relationship between economic growth and CO2 emissions across all quantiles, showcasing an EKC with diminishing marginal effects. Coal rents exhibit a statistically significant negative relationship with emissions, particularly in higher quantiles, and mineral rents show a negative association with CO2 emissions in lower and middle quantiles, reinforcing the idea of resource management in emissions reduction. Fossil fuels exert a considerable adverse impact on emissions, with a rising effect in progressive quantiles. Conversely, renewable energy significantly curtails CO2 emissions, with higher impacts in lower quantiles. Environmental tax also mitigates CO2 emissions. Environment-related technologies play a pivotal role in emission reduction, particularly in lower and middle quantiles, emphasizing the need for innovative solutions. These findings provide valuable insights for policymakers, highlighting the importance of tailoring interventions to different emission levels and leveraging diverse strategies for sustainable development.

Government political ideology and green innovation: evidence from OECD countries

In this paper, we examine the relationship between government political ideology and green innovation. We employ data on 20 democratic countries with multi-party systems between 2010 and 2018. Green innovation is measured by the total patents in environment-related technologies. We find a negative relationship between left-leaning government and green innovation, suggesting that leftist governments are associated with low green innovations. This finding is consistent with the political assumption that leftist governments resist technological advancement because it may cause unemployment, whereas rightist promotes technological advancement to benefit the capitalist. We also find that the effect of political ideology remains the same during electoral years, implying that elections do not present any pressure on parties to change their course towards green innovation. Our result implies that partisan politics matters in finding solutions to unending environmental challenges. The results are robust to alternative measurements of variables and econometric identification strategies.

Probing the carbon neutrality drive of environmental-related technologies and energy transition in France and Germany: a novel time–frequency technique

AbstractThis study presents a rare comparative analysis of the factors influencing environmental quality through greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the European Union member states’ largest economies, i.e., France and Germany. By considering the unique economic, energy, and environmental characteristics of both countries, the finding unveils a novel perspective in the literature. The research utilizes a recently developed wavelet local multiple correlation (WLMC) technique with quarterly dataset spanning from 1990/Q1 to 2020/Q4. The results demonstrate that environmental-related information and communication technologies innovations, energy transition, and financial development play significant roles in limiting the growth of GHGs emission, particularly in the medium and long term. The wavelet-based Granger causality analysis reveals evidence of feedback causality among the variables in both countries in the medium and long term. Moreover, there are slight differences in the short-term relationships given that the observations are generally similar in later period. Overall, the findings offer a deeper understanding and policy insights regarding the time and frequency dynamics of GHG drivers in France and Germany. Graphical abstract

What makes environment-related technologies less effective? The role of uncertainty

This study examines the effect of environment-related technologies on environmental quality, conditional on the level of uncertainty. We apply two panel quantile regression approaches to panel data on the member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) over the period 1990-2015. The empirical results suggest that environment-related technologies and uncertainty both significantly help improve the environmental conditions, although the magnitude of these impacts vary across the level of environmental footprint. Notably, higher uncertainty could negate the beneficial effects of green patents on the environmental footprint, especially in a highly degraded environment. Several preliminary tests, such as cross-sectional dependence, stationarity, cointegration, and nonnormality, provide support for the adoption of panel quantile regression. The significant and heterogeneous relationships between the environmental footprint and its determining factors are also established. This research offers a scientific explanation for the ineffective adoption of environment-related technologies for improving environmental quality in many OECD countries for years and hence has valuable implications for policy makers about leveraging the beneficial impacts of environment-related technologies on the ecosystem.

Environmental apprehension under COP26 agreement: Examining the influence of environmental-related technologies and energy consumption on ecological footprint

Environmental apprehension under COP26 agreement: Examining the influence of environmental-related technologies and energy consumption on ecological footprint

Balancing prosperity and sustainability: unraveling financial risks and green finance through a COP27 lens

PurposeThis study aims to examine the relationship between financial development (FD), financial risk, green finance and innovation related to carbon emissions in the G7 economies.Design/methodology/approachThis quantitative study examines the roles that financial development [FD: Domestic credit to private sector by banks as percentage of gross domestic product (GDP)], economic growth (GDP: Constant US$ 2015), financial risk index (FRI), green finance (GFIN: Renewable energy public research development and demonstration (RD&D) budget as percentage of total RD&D budget), development of environment-related technologies (DERTI: percentage of all technologies) and human capital (HCI: index) have on the environmental quality of developed economies. Based on panel data, the study uses a novel approach method of moments quantile regression as a main method to tackle the issue of cross-sectional dependency, slope heterogeneity and nonnormality of the data.FindingsThe study confirms that increasing economic development increases emissions and negatively impacts the environment. However, efficient resource allocation, improved financial systems, and green innovation are likely to contribute to emission mitigation and the overall development of a sustainable viable economy. Furthermore, the study highlights the importance of risk management in financial systems for future emissions prevention.Practical implicationsThe study uses a reliable estimation procedure, which extends the discussion on climate policy from a COP-27 perspective and offers practical implications for policymakers in developing more effective emission mitigation strategies.Social implicationsThe study offers policy suggestions for a sustainable economy, focusing on both COP-27 and the G7 countries. Recommendations include implementing carbon pricing, developing carbon capture and storage technologies, investing in renewables and energy efficiency and introducing financial instruments for emission mitigation. From a COP-27 standpoint, the G7 should prioritize transitioning to low-carbon economies and supporting developing nations in their sustainability efforts to address the pressing challenges of climate change and global warming.Originality/valueIn comparison to the literature, this study examines the importance of financial risk for G7 economies in promoting a sustainable environment. More specifically, in the context of FD and national income with carbon emissions, previous researchers have disregarded the importance of green innovation and human capital, so the current study fills the gap in the literature related to G7 economies by exploring the link between the identified variables related to carbon emissions.

Environmental quality and sustainability: exploring the role of environmental taxes, environment-related technologies, and R&D expenditure

Environmental quality and sustainability: exploring the role of environmental taxes, environment-related technologies, and R&D expenditure

How can natural resource dependence, environmental-related technologies and digital trade protect the environment: Redesigning SDGs policies for sustainable environment?

The worldwide community is seriously concerned about the shocking effects of climate change. In the Paris agreement, policymakers opted to mitigate worldwide emissions to a certain level, which raised considerable apprehension for the highest emitting countries. Numerous studies have investigated several indicators contributing to environmental sustainability, however limited research has focused on environmental-related technologies and the digital trade effect. Therefore, the current study inspects the nexus between environmental-related technologies, digital trade, natural resources, renewable energy use, and financial development on the carbon emissions in the top ten highest emitting countries from 2001 to 2021. This study confirms the existence of cross-sectional dependency and slope heterogeneity by employing second-generation tests for robust results. In this regard, the empirical findings depict that environmental-related technologies and financial development significantly upsurge the ecological footprint. Conversely, digital trade, renewable energy use, and the abundance of natural resources mitigate the level of ecological footprint in the long-run. Moreover, the causality analysis empirically supports the connection constructed on unidirectional and bidirectional causalities. Finally, this study proposes policy insights on the basis of findings to promote eco-friendly technology, renewable energy projects, scientific mining techniques for natural resources, transition to cleaner energy sources (SDG-7), and developed countries should assist emerging economies with advanced clean technology to restore ample biocapacity with less ecological damages (COP-27).

Determinants of sustainable energy in OECD countries: Role of technology and financial resources

Financial development is a leading factor toward economic expansion and endorsing energy innovations worldwide. However, financial development has alarmed stakeholders to evade its harmful impacts on environmental performance. Following the energy trade theoretical perspective, this paper aims to scrutinize the effects of financial development, environment-related technology and foreign direct investment (FDI) on sustainable energy in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) economies over the period 1990–2020. To reduce the omitting variables' errors, a pool of control variables consisting of urbanization, economic growth and exports is constructed. The study's empirical findings based on the system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) model elaborate that financial development significantly promotes renewable energy consumption and mitigates environmental deterioration in advanced nations. In terms of environment related technologies (ERT) and FDI, both become a cause to significantly preserve the environmental quality to align with carbon neutrality targets and sustainable development goals (SDGs). These outcomes are further validated with quantile regression to report the heterogeneous results. In the end, this article suggests necessary policy implications for the stakeholders.

Internet financial services, environmental technology, and happiness: Implications for sustainable development

Integrating the internet and financial services gives people the luxury to reduce financial stress and anxiety by giving consumers more power over their financial situation. Likewise, the adoption of environmental technologies helps improve environmental quality, which positively impacts mental and physical health and thus increases the sense of well-being and happiness. Therefore, the main focus of the study is to analyze the influence of financial services and environmental technologies on happiness. For analyzing the short and long-run impacts of financial services and environmental technologies on happiness, we have utilized the ARDL model and QARDL models. The findings of the ARDL model confirm the positive influence of financial services, environmental technologies, national income, financial development, and education on happiness in the short and long term. Similarly, the QARDL model also suggests the favorable long-run effects of financial services and environmental technologies on happiness at most quantiles. The long-run Wald test confirms the asymmetric influence of all variables on happiness, while in the short-term, excluding education, all other variables exert asymmetric impacts on happiness. Thus, to promote happiness, policymakers should try to increase the role of internet-based financial services and increases investment in research and development activities to enhance environment-related technologies. However, the study is limited to China, it should be expanded to other regions.

Analysis of patents and citations for selected areas of the bioeconomy in South Africa

The South African bioeconomy strategy did not clearly articulate the measurement framework to monitor the implementation of the strategy. This paper provides an analysis of bioeconomy patents, the most prolific organizations and citations at the EPO and USPTO for South Africa, BRICS, Egypt and Nigeria during the Ten-Year Innovation Plan 2008–2018. The terms ‘biotechnology’, ‘medical technology’, ‘pharmaceuticals’ and ‘selected environment-related technologies’ were used to search for patents. The OECD patents by technology, the EPO PATSTAT and the USPTO PatFT databases were used to map patents and citations. The results show that South Africa ranked last in the BRICS group but produced a higher number of patents than Egypt and Nigeria. The number of patents generally decreased for the selected countries except for China. The total citations for the selected countries was generally inconsistent. The important innovators for South Africa in the bioeconomy are mainly universities and public research institutions. A new fiscal approach to encourage knowledge application in bioeconomy in South Africa is required. Incentives from government that encourage collaboration between research institutions and industry to direct research with industry application are required. The study contributes to the development of metrics to monitor the bioeconomy in South Africa.

On public policies in the energy transition: Evidence on the role of socio-technical regimes for renewable technologies

Our purpose is to contribute to the debate on the energy transition by investigating the role of social, technical, political, and cultural aspects in stimulating the export of renewable technologies (RTs). The literature draws attention to the need to complement public policies with a supportive socio-technical regime, even if evidence is scarce. We maintain that countries' capability in environment-related technologies, public concern and awareness of climate change, and understanding of its damaging effects are relevant drivers, alongside renewable energy policies. Moreover, we expect that such socio-technical drivers, if operating together, amplify the stimulus of policies. We test these arguments through a panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) model in first differences in the EU over the period 1996–2020. Due to heterogeneity across countries, we test the determinants on high-performing countries. Results confirm the role of public awareness and show that the export of RTs is also stimulated by increases in the share of environment-related technologies and understanding of climate change. Countries' capability in green technologies is also supported by increases in public awareness and understanding of the climate issue.

Exploring the impact of formal and informal finance on green innovation under the lens of carbon neutrality.

In order to reduce environmental deterioration and promote sustainable growth, green innovation-which includes ecologically friendly technology and practices-has become a top priority of policymakers worldwide. This research investigates how formal and informal finance affects green innovation in highly polluted high, middle-, and low-income economies, using data spanning from 2007 to 2021. For analyzing the empirical link between formal finance, informal finance, and green innovation, we have employed the 2SLS and GMM estimation techniques. The primary estimates of the analysis suggest that formal and informal funding methods significantly impact environment-related technologies in high-income and middle- and low-income nations. Moreover, the GDP, carbon emissions, trade openness, human capital, research and development, financial stability, and digital finance are essential factors in promoting environment-related technologies in high-, middle-, and low-income nations, respectively. The policymakers in both groups of countries should foster collaboration between the formal and informal sectors to promote green innovations, which is essential for achieving sustainable development goals.