Improving environmental quality is essential for achieving sustainable economic development when nations pursue growth. Although previous studies looked into different factors of sustainability, the precise effects of natural resource rents as well as renewable energy on CO₂ emissions are yet to be studied in depth. This dissertation attempts to fill the gap by looking at the relationship between economic growth, natural resource rents, renewable energy, and the level of financial development with the environmental quality in eleven regions of emerged and developing economies over the time period of 1990 to 2022. The findings from the Pedroni cointegration analysis reveal a long-run association among financial development, renewable energy, natural resource rents, economic growth, and carbon emissions. Further analysis using the method of moments quantile regression (MMQREG) indicates that renewable energy and natural resource rents significantly reduce CO₂ emissions, particularly at higher quantiles, enhancing environmental quality. Conversely, financial development exacerbates CO₂ emissions, negatively affecting environmental sustainability. Economic growth demonstrates a nonsignificant negative relationship with carbon emissions. The study highlights the critical contributions of renewable energy and natural resource rents to improving environmental quality, while emphasizing the adverse environmental effects of financial development. Policymakers are encouraged to prioritize investments in renewable energy and the effective management of natural resources to mitigate carbon emissions and achieve sustainability in these economies.

The Gulf Cooperation Countries are rich in natural resources such as oil, yet they have serious environmental problems. These countries are also located in regions where there is abundance of sunshine, yet are not capitalizing on the use of solar energy—a clean source of fuel. They heavily rely on fossil fuels that are cheap and readily available in the region, causing serious environmental problems. This research investigates the role of trade, technology, and economic growth in improving environmental sustainability in this region; hence, covering the gap existing in the literature on how this region can address the problem of environmental sustainability. This research uses annual data of the Gulf Cooperation Countries for the period 1990 to 2022 and analyses it with the Methods of Moments Quantile Regression. The major findings presented in the research show the importance of technological innovations in ensuring the eradication of environmental deterioration. Technological innovation is observed to reduce environmental problems by 1.94 to 3.11 magnitude. The results also show that trade openness and natural resources rents fundamentally lower environmental deterioration in the long term by 0.02, and 0.05 to 0.09 magnitudes, respectively. However, the results show that economic growth, globalization, and financial development are harmful to environmental sustainability in this region. These factors tend to raise environmental damage by 0.14 to 0.24, 0.34 to 0.43, and 9.2 to 5.74 units on average, respectively. This research gives key policies towards advancing environmental sustainability through trade openness, natural resources rents, and technological innovation in the Gulf Cooperation Countries.