Assessing the environmental sustainability gap in G20 economies: The roles of economic growth, energy mix, foreign direct investment, and population

• DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e26535
• Publication Date: 2024-02-16T14:21:16Z
• Authors: Lei Wang; Muhammad Javeed A...; Mohd Naved Khan; Nabila Asghar; Hafeez ur Rehman; Yifan Xu
• Keywords: Kuznets Curve; Environmental Sustainability Index; Environmental Quality; Prosperity

There is serious debate among researchers regarding the sustainability implications of economic prosperity and energy dependence. Energy consumption has a critical linkage with growth, but it also degrades environmental quality. Therefore, important to investigate relationship between mix, sustainability. However, empirical literature utilizes narrow variables capture Because this, this research introduces new variable using entropy weighting combining deforestation, household carbon emissions, life expectancy. This study examines sustainability, other selected data from 2002 2019 for G20 its high-, upper-, low-middle-income member countries. Since shocks in one country can affect another, uses Augmented Mean Group (AMG) technique analysis. The results indicate that Gross Domestic Product (EG) square term did not support Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) theory. mix positive impact on gap across all samples except upper-middle-income group. Foreign direct investment positively affects gap, while population growth no significant impact. These findings demonstrate policymakers should environmentally friendly clean sources foster long-term