The ecological footprint attempts to quantify human impact on nature and its resources necessary to satisfy human needs. This research study explores the long-run implications of fiscal policy on the ecological footprint in Pakistan empirically, keeping different socio-economic factors into consideration. Per annum, time series data have been collected between 1976 and 2018, and the ARDL model is applied to investigate this long-run and short-run association. The conclusion of ARDL model shows that a 1% increase in public development expenditures, total population, GDP, and energy consumption increase 0.19, 2.17, 1.16, and 2.17% ecological footprint, respectively, in Pakistan between 1976 and 2018 vice versa. However, it is also derived that a 1% increase in public tax and non-tax revenue and current public expenditures (in health, education, and other social sectors) shrink 0.36 and 0.013% ecological footprint in the long run in Pakistan. For policy implications, these results focus on practical fiscal policy significance to achieve environmental targets in Pakistan, suggesting an increase in public current expenditures in public and social sectors and increasing public revenue by expanding the tax base, which will ultimately reduce ecological footprint in the long run in Pakistan.

This study analyzed the asymmetric impact of the physical infrastructure and trade openness on Pakistan’s ecological footprint over the period 1970–2019 using the non-linear autoregressive distributed lag model. The study results posit that positive and negative shocks to physical infrastructure increase and decrease the ecological footprint asymmetrically in the short-run and symmetrically in the long-run. Likewise, the positive and negative shocks to trade openness increase and decrease the ecological footprint asymmetrically, both in the short and in the long run. Furthermore, urbanization also positively and significantly increases Pakistan’s ecological footprint in the short and long run. Moreover, a 1% increase in physical infrastructure increases the ecological footprint by 0.32%, while a 1% decrease in physical infrastructure decreases the ecological footprint by 0.33% in the long run. Similarly, a 1% increase in trade openness causes a 0.09% increase in the ecological footprint in the long term, while a 1% reduction in trade openness causes a 0.61% reduction in the ecological footprint. The results also conclude that urbanization is a major determinant of Pakistan’s long-term ecological footprint. Thus, a 1% increase in urbanization causes a 1.31% increase in the ecological footprint in the long run. Finally, this study recommends that policies regarding physical infrastructure be formulated keeping in view its environmental impact. In addition, strict environmental policies should be implemented to reduce the environmental degradation effect of trade openness.

This is a comparative study that investigates the role of green growth, green technological innovations, agricultural eco-efficiency and trade openness on carbon neutrality in the top three carbon emitting countries, namely, China, the USA and India, using panel quantile regression with quarterly data for the time period of 2010-2022. The results reveal different findings which have important policy implications. Firstly, carbon emissions vs green growth and carbon emissions vs green technological innovation have a significant U-shaped relationship, which indicate that when green growth and green technological innovations increases, the rate of carbon emissions continues to decline up to a threshold point and start to increase thereafter. Secondly, carbon emissions vs agricultural ecoefficiency has an inverted U-shaped relationship with the carbon emissions, showing that when agriculture eco-efficiency increases the rate of carbon emissions continues to increase up to a threshold point, and starts declining afterwards. Thirdly, trade openness increases the carbon emissions resulting an increase in the environmental degradation and may hinders achieving the carbon neutrality target. The carbon emissions reduction policies such as carbon taxes, promoting green trade, promoting green growth and emission trading schemes must acknowledge and incorporate the interplay among key stakeholders to enhance their effectiveness.