Assessing environmental quality through natural resources, energy resources, and tax revenues

• Published in: Environmental science and pollution research international 2022-12, Vol.29 (59), p.89029-89044
• Main Authors: Zhang, Yanyan, Khan, Irfan, Zafar, Muhammad Wasif
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aquatic Pollution; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Carbon; Carbon dioxide; Carbon dioxide emissions; Developing countries; Earth and Environmental Science; Economic development; Economic growth; Economics; Ecotoxicology; Emissions; Empirical analysis; Energy consumption; Energy resources; Energy sources; Environment; Environmental Chemistry; Environmental degradation; Environmental Health; Environmental quality; Environmental quality assessment; Environmental science; Heterogeneity; LDCs; Natural resources; Pollution abatement; Quality assessment; Research Article; Resource consumption; Revenue; Tax revenues; Taxation; Urbanization; Waste Water Technology; Water Management; Water Pollution Control
• ISSN: 0944-1344; 1614-7499
• DOI: 10.1007/s11356-022-22005-z

Developing countries have depleted their natural resources in economic interest to achieve high economic growth. Current urbanization patterns and energy consumption and natural resource extraction are largely unsustainable. In this background, this paper investigates the impact of natural resources rent, energy resources consumption, and tax revenue on carbon emissions for developing countries. The study employed data for 48 developing countries from 1990 to 2020. We used second-generation methods for empirical analysis that control heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependence in the data. The advanced panel data estimates of CS-ARDL provide reliable outcomes by addressing these panel data econometric issues. The study results revealed that natural resources or natural resources rent in their exploitation accelerates carbon emission. Similarly, energy resources excessive consumption and economic growth are highly carbon-intensive for these countries and lead to environmental degradation. In contrast, tax revenue and education stabilized the environmental quality of the study interest. Besides this, to analyze the directional association among variables, the study applied DH causality test, which indicates a bidirectional link between tax revenues and emissions, energy resources and emissions, and income and CO 2 emissions. Based on the finding, the study suggests some policy implications to limit the extraction of natural resources and abate carbon emissions by establishing appropriate strategies and imposing environmental charges.