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Environmental degradation has become a severe concern across South Asia. Hence, it is imperative to model the macroeconomic determinants of environmental quality across this region. The traditional fossil fuel dependency of the major South Asian nations is alleged to have persistently deteriorated the quality of the environment across this region. Under such circumstances, it can be hypothesized that intra-regional trade within South Asia can facilitate renewable electricity trade to enhance environmental well-being. Accordingly, this study aims to evaluate the impacts of intra-regional trade integration, renewable energy transition, economic growth, and foreign direct investment inflows on the ecological footprints of selected South Asian economies. The econometric methods used in this study are suited for handling cross-sectionally dependent heterogeneous panel datasets. The overall results reveal that promoting intra-regional trade, stimulating renewable energy transition, expediting economic growth, and impeding inflows of dirty foreign direct investments are imperative for reducing the ecological footprint figures of the South Asian nations of concern. Besides, the results also verify the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis for the South Asian panel as well as for Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bhutan but not for India and Pakistan. Moreover, the pollution haven hypothesis is also verified for both the panel and the individual South Asian countries. In line with these findings, several environmental welfare improvement-related policies are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the dynamic effect of non-renewable energy, renewable energy, economic growth, and foreign direct investment on environmental degradation in twenty selected African countries over the period 2000–2015. We have adopted Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis and the Pollution Haven/Halo hypothesis simultaneously. In the first stage, this paper performs cross-independence test and found cross-sectional dependence in carbon emissions, non-renewable energy, and renewable energy. In the second stage, it applies first generation and second generation unit root tests for panel data and found that all concerning variables are I(1) except for economic growth which is found I(0). Therefore, we used the Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag approach using Pooled Mean Group, Mean Group, and Dynamic Fixed Effect estimators. The results indicate that all independent variables are significant and positive to CO 2 emissions except for renewable energy found significant and negative to CO2 emissions, and foreign direct investment found significant and positive only in the long term. Moreover, the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis did not hold in our sample, while we found strong evidence for the Pollution Haven hypothesis in selected African countries. • non-renewable energy, renewable energy, economic growth, and foreign direct investment-CO 2 emissions relationship is investigated. • Positive effect of non-renewable energy and negative effect of renewable energy are found. • The Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis does not hold. • The Pollution Haven hypothesis is verified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]