Does Energy Productivity and Technological Innovation Limit Trade-Adjusted Carbon Emissions?

The present study aims to examine the effect of energy productivity, international trade, especially by treating exports and imports distinctly with technological innovation and gross domestic product on Consumption-based Carbon emissions for G-7 countries over the period of 1996–2017. This study employed cross-section dependence and slope heterogeneity for evaluating the order of unit root. The cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lags model (CS-ARDL) is used for evaluating long and short-run relationships among variables; and an augmented mean group and a common correlated mean group test to check for robustness. The findings confirm cointegration relationships with structural breaks (e.g., the 2001 mild recession; the 2008 global financial crisis; the 2011 stock market decline; and the 2014 exports decline in Italy, France, the United Kingdom and Japan) among consumption based carbon emission, energy productivity, exports, imports, gross domestic product, and technological innovation. Further, energy productivity, exports and technological innovation are inversely related to consumption based carbon emission while imports and gross domestic product are positively associated with consumption-based carbon emissions for G-7 countries. The findings recommend the promotion of technological innovation and cleaner production for curbing consumption-based carbon emissions.