Transport sustainability governance and green growth in the EU-27: Evidence from panel CS-ARDL and MMQR models

In most countries of the world, realizing the sustainable development concept has caused a lively discussion in the scientific environment regarding the mutual influence of the economic growth and the environmental health. Is the economic growth even possible without environmental damage? The answer is still unknown. Research studies both confirm and refute this interaction. The U-shaped curve (Environmental Kuznets Curve) hypothesis is the most popular in this regard. Scientists from different countries analyze the impact of the economic climate on the environmental health taking the hypothesis into account. At the same time, these studies use gross national income as a base indicator, which reflects only the economic dimension of the research, but does not consider the depletion of natural capital on the path of economic growth. The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that have the most significant impact on the adjusted net savings in Ukraine and a number of selected countries, and also take into account the agrarian sector development, which is important in terms of substantiation of the expediency of a significant increase in natural agricultural production in the Ukrainian agrarian sector. The paper presents the results of constructing a model based on World Bank data for the period from 2009 to 2017, for Ukraine and 13 other countries that are neighbors of Ukraine and belong to the lower middle-income group. From the list of indicators provided by the World Bank to characterize the state of the environment in the world, 13 indicators are chosen that most fully characterize the situation in the selected countries. Based on the analysis of the panel data formed, the result is that agricultural land (% of land area), energy use per capita (kg oil equivalent), and agricultural productivity (value added per worker) have the most significant impact on the adjusted net savings. With that, the first two indicators show a positive impact, while the third one has a negative impact, indicating that the increase in productivity in the agrarian sector of the economy results in the environmental deterioration. All this allows us to conclude about the necessity to introduce natural agroproduction technologies in order to improve the environment, especially considering the fact that in Ukraine, the share of the agrarian sector in GDP increases every year.

The main originality of this paper is to empirically investigate the long-run relationship between carbone dioxide (CO2) emissions, energy use and real GDP per capita in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) during the last three decades. Using panel cointegration tests (Westerlund, (2007) and DOLS estimation method, we validate the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis in the long run for the MENA region countries. Therefore, we conclude that oil producer countries have adopted several policy decisions in favor of CO2 emissions reduction. The estimated turning point of the EKC confirms our intuitions that only oil producer countries achieve CO2 emissions reduction goal.

The design, implementation, and evaluation of energy policies in combating climate change are becoming increasingly evident to strengthen economic growth driven by the agricultural sector in most developing countries. The study analyzes the direct and indirect effects of renewable energy consumption (REC) on agriculture value-added (AgVA), CO2 emissions, and trade openness in the short- and long-run in the West African countries. The second-generation panel unit root tests, the panel cointegration methods, and Panel Vector Error Correction Model are used with World Bank data from 1990 to 2015. A panel Granger causality test was also used to determine the direction of causality between variables. Findings show a unidirectional relationship between AgVA, CO2 emissions, and REC; between REC, gross fixe capital formation (GFCF) and trade openness. Moreover, the bidirectional hypothesis is verified between agricultural development and trade openness. However, the null hypothesis is found between AgVA and GFCF, on the one hand, and GFCF and CO2 emissions, on the other hand. These results suggest that fostering renewable energy policy and revisiting trade policy toward reducing environmental pollution will enable agricultural development and boost the regional economy.

Acknowledgment
The author wants to thank Dr. Moukpè GNINIGUE for his technical supports and Prof. Jean Marcelin Bosson BROU from the University of Houphouet Boigny (Cote d’Ivoire), Dr. Odzadifo K. WONYRA and Dr. Hodabalo BATAKA from the University of Kara, Dr. Koffi Massesso ADJI from the West African Sciences Services Centre on Climate Change and Land Use (University of Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar) and Essotanam MAMBA from the University of Lomé for their constructive comments on the earlier version of this manuscripts. Finally, the author is grateful to the anonymous reviewers and Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Economics, whose comments have improved this paper. However, the opinions expressed in this paper are solely those of the author.