School of Management, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, People's Republic of China.
School of Management, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, People's Republic of China.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2023 Aug;30(36):86025-86046. doi: 10.1007/s11356-023-28366-3. Epub 2023 Jul 3.
The nations participating in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are particularly vulnerable to the challenges posed by climate change due to their extensive trading activities. The need to protect the environment and mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change in these countries is of utmost importance. Therefore, this study contributes to the scientific understanding of this issue by examining the relationship between trade openness and environmental sustainability in 89 BRI countries from 1990 to 2020. Additionally, control variables, including economic growth, energy consumption, urbanization, industrialization, and foreign direct investment, are considered to address omitted variable bias issues. The study utilizes the Augmented Mean Group (AMG) and Common Correlated Effects Mean Group (CCEMG) regression estimators, and the findings reveal that trade openness improves environmental sustainability. However, economic growth, energy consumption, urbanization, and industrialization degrade environmental sustainability. Interestingly, the results affirm foreign direct investment as a trivial determinant of environmental sustainability. Regarding causal relationships, reciprocal causalities are observed between trade openness and carbon emissions, energy consumption and carbon emissions, and urbanization and carbon emissions. Furthermore, one-way causalities exist from economic growth to carbon emissions and from carbon emissions to foreign direct investment. Nevertheless, no causal relationship is identified between industrialization and carbon emissions. Based on these significant findings, it is recommended that China, as a prominent player in the BRI, takes further steps to enhance and promote energy-efficient practices in BRI countries. One practical approach is the establishment of energy efficiency standards for the goods and services traded with these countries.
参与“一带一路”倡议的国家由于其广泛的贸易活动，特别容易受到气候变化带来的挑战的影响。保护这些国家的环境并减轻气候变化的不利影响至关重要。因此，本研究通过检验 1990 年至 2020 年间 89 个“一带一路”国家的贸易开放度与环境可持续性之间的关系，为这一问题的科学理解做出了贡献。此外，还考虑了经济增长、能源消耗、城市化、工业化和外国直接投资等控制变量，以解决遗漏变量偏差问题。该研究使用了扩展均值组（AMG）和共同相关效应均值组（CCEMG）回归估计器，研究结果表明，贸易开放度提高了环境可持续性。然而，经济增长、能源消耗、城市化和工业化则降低了环境可持续性。有趣的是，研究结果证实了外国直接投资对环境可持续性的影响微不足道。关于因果关系，贸易开放度和碳排放之间、能源消耗和碳排放之间以及城市化和碳排放之间存在相互因果关系。此外，经济增长与碳排放之间以及碳排放与外国直接投资之间存在单向因果关系。然而，工业化与碳排放之间没有因果关系。基于这些重要发现，建议作为“一带一路”倡议的主要参与者，中国采取进一步措施，加强和促进“一带一路”国家的节能实践。一种实用方法是为与这些国家进行贸易的商品和服务制定能源效率标准。
