Abstract
Environmental degradation is harming the sustainable development of all societies by reducing the availability of resources for development. And environmental pollution is largely due to the use of fossil fuels, like natural gas, petroleum, coal, heavy oil, bitumen, and oil shales. According to many researchers and environmentalists, clean technologies have been considered an effective method to deal with environmental pollution. Thus, governments and enterprises have invested a significant amount in green research and development expenditures for green and sustainable research to improve clean technologies. However, cyclical fluctuations (increasing in the boom period and declining in the recession) could badly affect the research and development expenditures and green and sustainable research. Moreover, the pro-cyclicality in green and sustainable technology research may have a non-linear effect on environmental sustainability. However, there are no empirical studies on the non-linear link between green and sustainable technology research and environmental sustainability. This paper explored the asymmetrical relationships between green and sustainable technology research and environmental sustainability among the BRICS states, along with foreign direct investment, renewable energy use, and exports as control variables. The data was analyzed by second and third-generation economic techniques such as Slope Heterogeneity and Cross-Section Independence Test, Unit Root Test, structural break unit root test, Panel Cointegration with Structural Breaks cointegration tests, CS-ARDL, AMG, FMOLS, and Dumitrescu-Hurlin Panel Causality test. The results showed that positive shocks to green and sustainable technology research and renewable energy consumption are proper to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions (short- and long-run). Meanwhile, negative shocks to green and sustainable technology research, gross domestic product, foreign direct investment, and exports increase carbon dioxide emissions.
The cyclical and asymmetrical impact of green and sustainable technology research (GSTR) on carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) in BRICS economies: Role of renewable energy consumption, foreign direct investment, and exports
