Energy resources, tourism development and growth-emission nexus in developing countries

The primary purpose of this research is to evaluate the interrelationship between economic growth, carbon dioxide emissions, fossil fuel resource consumption, renewable energy resource consumption, and the development of the tourism industry. To this end, the panel VAR (Vector Autoregressive) approach is employed to analyze the annual data over 2000-2021 for 40 developing Asian countries. The major findings confirmed the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis only for economic growth in the industry and services sectors. In addition, there are bi-directional linkages between economic growth in all three sectors and tourism development, revealing the existence of both TLGH (the Tourism-led growth hypothesis) and ELTG (Economic Lead Tourism Growth) hypotheses. Regarding the value of the growth rate of CO2 (Carbon dioxide) emissions, the growth rates of all variables in the previous period positively impact it. In contrast, the growth rate of the green energy index negatively affects the value of the growth rate of carbon emissions in the examined Asian developing economies. Developing green financing markets and promoting green culture are two recommended practical policies by this research.

Automated summary

The research examines the relationship between economic growth, carbon emissions, fossil fuel consumption, renewable energy consumption, and tourism development in 40 developing Asian countries from 2000 to 2021 using panel VAR analysis. The findings support the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis for economic growth in industry and services sectors. The study also reveals bi-directional linkages between economic growth and tourism development, supporting both the Tourism-led growth and Economic Lead Tourism Growth hypotheses. The growth rates of all variables in the previous period positively impact carbon emissions, while the growth rate of the green energy index negatively affects carbon emissions in Asian developing economies. The research suggests developing green financing markets and promoting green culture as practical policies.