The Impacts of Globalization and GDP on CO2 Emissions: Do Technological Innovation and Renewable Energy Lower Some Burden in SAARC Countries

This paper analyzed the impact of globalization (GLO), technological innovation (TI), renewable energy (RE), and GDP on environmental degradation in SAARC countries. As per the empirical results, the association of CO2 with GDP and globalization is found to be statistically significant and positive. The analysis also validates the existence of the Environmental Kuznets Curve for SAARC countries. However, the association of CO2 with TI and RE is found to be negative but significant for RE and insignificant for TI. Moreover, our empirical findings show the positive impact of cleaner energy on short-term CO2 emissions mitigations. The long and short-run estimations of the ARDL model indicate that GDP and GLO worsen the environment of SAARC countries, whereas RE and TI improve environmental quality. Therefore, it is essential to upsurge the RE and TI in these countries to mitigate environmental degradation. The Granger causality test shows that unidirectional causality exists from renewable energy to CO2 emissions, whereas, bidirectional causality is observed from TI and globalization to CO2 emissions.