Do Information Communication Technology and Economic Development Impact Environmental Degradation? Evidence From the GCC Countries

Abstract

The environmental variations compel global countries for restructuring economic growth policies to ensure reliable energy usage. Ecological sustainability is a leading concern of the world for adequate and smooth survival of human beings. The inefficiency of technology is a focal hindrance to attaining the sustainable environment goal. This research aims to probe the cointegration and causal relationship among information communication technology, CO2 emission, economic development, trade, and total population for GCC countries, namely, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, and Bahrain, from 2000 to 2018. This research approached the unit-root tests, cointegration test, and FMOLS and DOLS test to determine stationarity of data series, cointegration relationship among variables, and the short- and long-run relationship among variables, respectively. The results of the analytical procession by employing FMOLS and DOLS confirmed that CO2 emission, ICT, and ED are positively significant, while POP was negatively substantial at a 1% level. No relation has been observed between trade and CO2 emission. The long-run relationship among variables is confirmed by FMOLS and DOLS analyses. A negative relationship between population growth and CO2 emission is observed. It is ideal for enhancing environmental sustainability by awareness of people’s importance to the environment. The GCC countries should transform or divide their economic growth sectors instead of only the fossil fuel sector. This research also enlightened the way to reduce environmental destruction by the attraction of foreign investments in other sectors compared to entire fossil fuel industries, and the information communication technologies also move toward green technology using environmentally friendly energy resources.