Abstract
Economic complexity, biomass energy consumption, and information communication technology (ICT) have diverse impacts on energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Nevertheless, analysis of these variable effects is not addressed in the previous literature; the antiqueness of this article is stuffing this gap. This study assessed the relationship between gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, biomass consumption, economic complexity index (ECI), ICT, and CO2 emissions in Iran in 1994–2018. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model and the quantile regression (QR) econometric technique were used to investigate the factors affecting CO2 emissions in the tails of the conditional distribution. The share of each influential factor was predicted through the variance decomposition analysis (VD) for the next 10 years. The empirical results showed a long-run relationship between the variables. So, the variables of biomass consumption, ECI, and ICT improve the quality of the environment in Iran by reducing CO2 emissions, and the per capita GDP variable increases CO2 emissions. Results suggest no evidence indicating the presence of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC); however, QR demonstrated the existence of EKCs in the lower quantiles of the conditional distribution. The ECI will have the most share to change the CO2 emissions in the future. The income threshold should be determined at the turning point of the EKC to increase economic development. Moreover, investing in increasing biomass consumption is vital. Policymakers also need to consider strict added value for the export of products.
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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [second author], upon reasonable request.
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The authors confirm contribution to the paper as follows: study conception and design: AM, SSY; data collection: MHEN and HG; analysis and interpretation of results: AM, SSY; draft manuscript preparation: SSY. All authors reviewed the results and approved the final version of the manuscript.
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Highlights
•Focus on Iran as one of the largest Co2 emissions in the world.
•The effects of GDP, economic complexity index biomass consumption and internet consumption on air quality are assessed.
•Economic complexity is significantly affecting the reduction of Co2 emissions in the future.
•Our result provides a new strategy for policymakers to move towards sustainable economic development.
•ARDL, QR and VD analysis techniques were applied.
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Mehrjo, A., Satari Yuzbashkandi, S., Eskandari Nasab, M.H. et al. Economic complexity, ICT, biomass energy consumption, and environmental degradation: evidence from Iran. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 69888–69902 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-20689-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-20689-x