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The role of financial development and technological innovation on environmental quality is insufficiently examined by researchers for emerging Asian nations. Thus, this paper scrutinizes the impact of financial progress and technological innovation on the ecological footprint (EF) in the context of emerging Asian countries considering data for the period 1985–2018. The results obtained from Cross-Sectionally Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lag approach confirm that financial development related to EF is positive, while technological innovation concerning EF is significantly negative. The Dumitrescu–Hurlin (D–H) granger causality test identified a statistically significant unidirectional relationship between financial development and EF in which technological innovation has a bidirectional association with EF. The policy implications of this paper suggest that Asian nations should undertake a proactive green investment policy to direct investment toward green projects rather than environmentally harmful ones. Further, appropriate policy and incentives must be pursued to enhance technological innovation to attain sustainable environmental and social development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies have investigated the effect of environmental taxes on economic growth and carbon emissions. However, limited studies have quantitatively identified the connection between environmental taxes and technological innovations. The main focus of this study is to investigate the causal relations between environmental taxes and environment-related technological innovation with a holistic, robust model with significant statistical power. This model consists of panel cointegration analysis considering the cross-sectional dependence, applied to quantify the effects of environmental taxes on environment-related technological innovation in high and middle-income 42 countries from 1995 to 2018. The long-run results suggest that environmental taxes stimulate technological innovation; for example, a 1% increase in environmental taxes was found to increase environment-related technological innovation by 0.57 and 0.78% on average for high and middle-income countries using the CCEMG and AMG techniques, respectively. The policy implications of this study suggest that imposing environmental taxes can accelerate the advancement of environmental-related technologies for reducing carbon emission and sustainable development in high and middle-income nations, with possible applications in a broad range of nations, particularly as an evidence base for developing nations to shorten energy transition timelines. [Display omitted] • Econometric methods were applied to clarify the relationship between environmental taxes and technological innovation. • Builds on prior studies, employing a robust, statistically powerful approach. • Results identify that environmental taxes stimulate technological innovation in high and middle-income nations. • The proposed policy can be applied for developing nations to shorten their energy transition timelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many countries have considered energy subsidies, with both successes and failures. Energy subsidies often have failed to achieve their stated objective of advancing national economic, social, and technological progress. Budgetary savings from the removal of energy subsidies and the resulting upsurge in energy prices may induce the adoption of innovative technologies in a country. The economic impact of energy subsidies has been analyzed for many countries in the literature. However, this issue with energy technology innovation using panel analysis has not yet been thoroughly investigated. Therefore, this study is intended to discover the effect of energy subsidies on energy technology innovation in the 25 highest energy subsidy-providing countries for the period of 2010–2020, employing advanced econometric approaches. The results confirm that energy subsidies and energy technology innovation are significantly cointegrated, and the removal of energy subsidies stimulates technological innovation, which induces the adoption of a renewable-based polygeneration system. The policy implication of this paper suggests going for further innovations in energy subsidy reforms for sustainability and technological innovation for polygeneration that may contribute to clean, sustainable, and affordable energy for all (SDG-7). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public investments in research, development, demonstration, and deployment in energy systems are crucial for accelerating the adoption of new energy technologies that can support a low-carbon just energy transition and promote the fair and equitable distribution of benefits and costs, improving social equity. However, the impact of energy innovation funding on social equity through progressing the just energy transition has not been explored in prior research for advanced economies. Thus, this research quantitively examines how energy innovation funding affects social equity in 23 developed economies for the period of 1995–2020. Employing a fixed effect, augmented mean group, and a system-generalized method of moments technique along with a mediating model, this study finds that increasing energy innovation funding significantly improves social equity directly as well as indirectly via accelerating energy justice in advanced economies. Therefore, proper allocation and utilization of public energy innovation budgets are necessary to promote clean energy technologies, advance the just energy transition, and improve social equity, inclusion, and community engagement. This study emphasizes the importance of policy interventions that promote a just energy transition and energy innovation funding to build resilient and inclusive energy systems that improve social equity while achieving Sustainable Development Goal 7, affordable and clean energy. • Energy innovation funding is crucial for sustainable, equitable energy systems. • Just energy transition and social equity are positively linked. • Energy innovation funding impacts social equity via just energy transition. • Combining just energy transition and energy innovation funding can promote social equity. • Policy interventions promoting just energy transition are crucial for social equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]