Moderating the role of social progress with greenhouse gases to determine the health vulnerability in developing countries.

Human activities have compelled massive environmental degradation, which causes climate vulnerability and that has emerged as a significant health issue. The present study assesses the role of social progress with greenhouse gases to determine the health vulnerability in 77 developing countries from 2011 to 2020. The empirical results are estimated by using the panel ARDL econometric approach. The study found that greenhouse gas emission proposes a U-shaped relationship to determine health vulnerability. In this study, social progress is used as the moderator variable, which shifts the turning point of the U-shaped curve. For this purpose, the interaction term of social progress with greenhouse gases shifts the turning point to the left side of the U-shaped curve and further flattens it. Furthermore, this study explores that urbanization, export openness, and government education expenditure negatively impact health vulnerability while industrialization increases health vulnerability. The study recommends that government should pay special attention to declining greenhouse gases and rising social progress to improve health vulnerability.Graphical abstact.

Analyzing the impact of access to electricity and biomass energy consumption on infant mortality rate: a global perspective.

Conserving the lives of newborns has been a long-standing issue around the world, where 2.4 million babies die in the first month of the life. The literature indicates that the important challenges of social development goals around the globe include affordable and easy access to electricity, promotion of sustainable economic development, and provision of better social services and creation of job opportunities which help in reducing infant mortality rate. This calls for the need to probe into this matter minutely and brings up the ways for reducing the infant mortality rate. The present study is an attempt to analyze the impact of rural and urban electrification and biomass energy consumption on infant mortality rate for the period 1990-2020 using the Panel Quantile Regression (PQR) approach. The results of the study show that in both developed and developing countries, biomass energy consumption has positive impact on infant mortality rate, while rural and urban electrification has proposed the inverted U-shaped relationship with infant mortality in different quantile groups. It is also concluded that few developing countries are failed to achieve the maturity of the inverted U-shaped curve while all developed countries have achieved at the maturity stage. This study recommended that for reducing the infant mortality rate, the world should discourage the use of biomass energy and promote the affordable and easy access to electricity on priority basis.

Exploring the moderating effect of globalization, financial development and environmental degradation nexus: a roadmap to sustainable development.

Financial development is a multidimensional process that contributes to economic growth but sometimes it has a devastating effect on climate change. No country can achieve sustainable development goals without caring the environmental quality. The present study investigates the moderating role of globalization (KOF) in determining the financial development (FD) on environmental degradation in the SAARC countries from 1990 to 2020. The long-run coefficients are estimated using the panel quantile regression (PQR) approach at lower, middle and upper quantile groups. The study shows the U-shaped relationship across three quantile groups based on financial development and carbon emissions. The moderator globalization (KOF) brings up the change in the turning point and flattens before the maturity of the U-shaped curve at the middle quantile while flattens after the maturity of the U-shaped curve at the upper quantile. The study recommends that by using energy-efficient technologies, better financial sector interaction with globalization enhances the environmental quality in SAARC countries.

Revisiting the environmental impact of financial development on economic growth and carbon emissions: evidence from South Asian economies.

It is a global challenge to achieve sustainable economic growth by improving the environment. The present study discussed the role of the financial development sector in achieving sustainable economic growth and environmental quality in South Asian countries from 1990 to 2020 by controlling labour force participation, globalization, industrialization, and the education sector. A feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) panel data econometric technique has been used to check the relationship among the variables. The results show that financial development has a U-shaped relationship with carbon emissions and economic growth. Furthermore, labour force participation, industrialization, globalization, and educational school enrolment significantly increase CO2 and economic growth. This study suggests that the governments of South Asian countries should take steps to increase economic growth. For this purpose, effective supervisory mechanisms of financial development through financial innovation, improving financial efficiency, maintaining financial stability, and reducing the environmental pollution.

Nexus between fossil fuel consumption and infant mortality rate: a non-linear analysis.

For nations already facing pollution issues, fossil fuel energy consumption is deteriorating living standards. Though prevailing infrastructure makes fossil fuel energy use feasible for production, it still pollutes our environment. This study in the domain of environment and development assesses the impact of fossil fuel energy consumption on the infant mortality rate in 15 Asian economies during 1996 and 2019. The living standards are assessed using infant mortality rate, while non-linear fossil fuel energy consumption is used with gross capital formation, employment, and preprimary education as independent variables. The feasible generalized least square method evaluates the effects. The study concludes that fossil fuel energy consumption follows a U-shaped relationship explaining infant mortality. The results point out that over-consumption of fossil fuel energy is deteriorating the living standards considering low air quality levels in Asian economies.