Do Energy Transition and International Tourism Mitigate Environmental Emissions? The Case of SCO Economies

Muhammad Sajid Ameen, Feroze Ali, and Muhammad Atiq-ur-Rehman

Abstract

This study examines the role of energy transition and international tourism in alleviating environmental emissions in the case of selected Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) countries for 1992–2022. Ecological footprint has been taken as a proxy for environmental emissions. Along with energy transition and international tourism, GDP per capita is also incorporated as an independent variable to check the validity of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. To find the cross-sectional dependency among selected economies, the cross-sectional dependence (CD) test was used. Due to geographical reasons, cross-country spillover special effects are possible among the eight SCO economies. After testing the unitroots of the variables, two empirical approaches have been used for the empirical findings: fixed effect regression with Driscoll-Kraay (DK) standard errors and the method of moment’s quintile regression (MMQR). The empirical results indicate that the EKC hypothesis is not valid in the case of the eight selected SCO countries. Though energy transition has reduced environmental emissions in the economies under consideration, the impact of international tourism on the population is statistically insignificant. We can conclude and propose for countries in this region to focus on renewable energy sources