What factors contribute to environmental degradation in G11 economies? Emphasizing the importance of renewable and non-renewable energy sources

ABSTRACT This study explored the dynamic nexus between trade openness, non-renewable, renewable-energy consumption, urbanization, economic growth, and ecological footprint considering the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 7 and 13 of ensuring access to reliable, renewable, and clean energy technology, as well as climate action, by employing a second-generation panel data technique for G11 economies from 1991 to 2018. The study used second-generation panel unit root tests, panel cointegration techniques, and the augmented mean group (AMG) approach to estimate the long-run magnitude of the parameters for this purpose. The empirical findings show that trade openness, economic growth, and urbanization all considerably increase the environmental deficit, but renewable energy use minimizes total environmental degradation in the long run. Furthermore, the Dumitrescu and Hurlin (D-H) causality test discovered that economic growth, non-renewable consumption, urbanization, and the EFP have long-term bidirectional correlation, whereas GDP, renewable energy consumption, and trade openness have long-term unidirectional causality. As a result, the industrial infrastructure of the G11 nations must be modernized, and renewable energy must be enhanced further.