This study presents an overview of the economic analysis and environmental impact of natural gas conversion technologies. Published articles related to economic analysis and environmental impact of natural gas conversion technologies were reviewed and discussed. The economic analysis revealed that the capital and the operating expenditure of each of the conversion process is strongly dependent on the sophistication of the technical designs. The emerging technologies are yet to be economically viable compared to the well-established steam reforming process. However, appropriate design modifications could significantly reduce the operating expenditure and enhance the economic feasibility of the process. The environmental analysis revealed that emerging technologies such as carbon dioxide (CO₂) reforming and the thermal decomposition of natural gas offer advantages of lower CO₂ emissions and total environmental impact compared to the well-established steam reforming process. Appropriate design modifications such as steam reforming with carbon capture, storage and utilization, the use of an optimized catalyst in thermal decomposition, and the use of solar concentrators for heating instead of fossil fuel were found to significantly reduced the CO₂ emissions of the processes. There was a dearth of literature on the economic analysis and environmental impact of photocatalytic and biochemical conversion processes, which calls for increased research attention that could facilitate a comparative analysis with the thermochemical processes.

The need to mitigate CO₂ emissions from the transportation sector has necessitated the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and other forms of alternative vehicles. Despite the global rise of EVs demand as a complementary means of green transportations, the level of adoption in Malaysia is still not encouraging. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the cost competitiveness of EVs in comparison with Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs) and an Internal Combustion Vehicle (ICV) based on Malaysia scenarios. Using the existing data in Malaysia, life cost analysis (LCC) of two EVs was computed and compared with HEVs and ICVs. The study shows that Nissan leaf and BMW i3s EVs with LCC of $1.75 and $2.5 per km are not cost-competitive based on prevalent data available in Malaysia compared to the HEVs and ICV. Based on the sensitivity analysis, changes in the components of the operating costs significantly influence the accumulated cost of ownership of the EVs whereas the cost of ownership of the HEVs and ICVs did not experience any significant influence. The findings from this study could serve as bases for policymakers to formulate appropriate policies and strategies to improve the competitiveness of EVs in Malaysia.

The study employs social learning theory (SLT) to investigate the impact of virtue and tone based ethical leadership on the subordinates moral outcome in institutions. Data were collected from a survey of 182 academic staff in a university in Africa. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is the data analytic technique employed to test the research model. The findings suggest that virtue-based academic ethical leadership and ethical leadership climate positively influence employee moral effectiveness. Academic ethical leadership was found to have a profound indirect significant influence on employee moral effectiveness and academic ethical leadership. The research is substantial and would be of interest to educational policymakers, academic leaders and government in resolving ethical issues.

Climate change is mostly caused by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. By establishing green financing initiatives and levying taxes on carbon pollution, green financing and carbon taxes are seen as viable policy tools for reducing harmful environmental externalities. This study examines the role of carbon taxes as an emerging source of renewable energy green financing to achieve net-zero emissions targets. Raising research questions such as: Can carbon taxation be employed as a means of offsetting carbon emissions? What is the people’s perception of a carbon tax? Can carbon taxation be a potential source of green financing for renewable projects? The study established that the implementation of a carbon tax has a significant effect in offsetting carbon emissions to a large extent. However, there are divergent views of people toward the implementation of a carbon tax as indicated by studies from different countries. The findings established that the revenue generated from carbon tax could be channeled towards the funding of renewable energy projects as obtainable in Japan and other countries.

This study investigates the use of a non-linear autoregressive exogenous neural network (NARX) model to investigate the nexus between energy usability, economic indicators, and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in four Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), namely Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Optimized NARX model architectures of 5-29-1, 5-19-1, 5-17-1, 5-13-1 representing the input nodes, hidden neurons and the output units were obtained from the series of models configured. Based on the relationship between the input variables, CO₂ emissions were predicted with a high correlation coefficient (R) > 0.9. and low mean square errors (MSE) of 3.92 × 10⁻²¹, 4.15 × 10⁻²³, 2.02 × 10⁻¹⁹, 1.32 × 10⁻²⁰ for Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines, respectively. Coal consumption has the highest level of influence on CO₂ emissions in the four ASEAN countries based on the sensitivity analysis. These findings suggest that government policies in the four ASEAN countries should be more intensified on strategies to reduce CO₂ emissions in relationship with the energy and economic indicators.