Murshed Muntasir, Atiqur Rahman A K M, Mahtab Alam Mohammad
Department of Economics, School of Business and Economics, North South University, Dhaka, 1229, Bangladesh; Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), E-17 Agargaon, Sher-e- Bangla Nagar, Dhaka, 1207, Bangladesh; Department of Business Administration, Daffodil International University, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Department of Economics, School of Business and Economics, North South University, Dhaka, 1229, Bangladesh.
J Environ Manage. 2025 Sep;392:126876. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2025.126876. Epub 2025 Aug 9.
South Asia is regarded as a global region with high susceptibility to carbon emission-related climatic problems. As a result, the persistent rise in carbon dioxide emission levels of the South Asian countries has motivated policymakers to develop strategies that are relevant for making this region environmentally sustainable. Although previous research works conducted in the South Asian context have emphasized the pertinence of reducing the annual level of carbon dioxide emissions, those studies have disregarded the issue that the vast reliance of South Asian countries on fossil fuels may prevent them from abating their yearly emission figures. Hence, considering data from seven South Asian countries, this study appraises whether improving internet penetration rates would affect their annual growth rates of fossil fuel consumption-based carbon dioxide emissions. Overall, from the empirical analyses, it is found that more internet penetration (as indicated by increments in shares of internet users in the total population) helps to mitigate annual carbon dioxide emission growth rates. Besides, the negative internet penetration-carbon dioxide emission growth rate nexus appears to be robust when different proxies of internet penetration are considered. Moreover, the robustness of this nexus is also affirmed by the finding of unidirectional causal influences exerted by internet penetration on carbon dioxide emission growth rates in the South Asian context. Furthermore, the results endorse that annual carbon dioxide emission growth rates are positively influenced by natural resource dependence and financial development, while urbanization curbs emission growth rates in the long-run. Contrastingly, the carbon dioxide emission growth rate-influencing impacts of clean energy adoption, foreign direct investment, and good governance are found to be statistically inconclusive. Accordingly, for ensuring sustainable environments across this region, South Asian policymakers should focus on developing green internet-based infrastructures while strategizing plans for lessening dependence on unclean natural resources, promoting full-blown clean energy adoption, facilitating low-carbon urbanization processes, greening domestic financial sectors, attracting clean foreign direct investments, and enhancing governance quality.
南亚被视为一个极易受到与碳排放相关的气候问题影响的全球区域。因此，南亚国家二氧化碳排放水平的持续上升促使政策制定者制定相关战略，以实现该地区的环境可持续性。尽管此前在南亚背景下开展的研究工作强调了降低年度二氧化碳排放水平的相关性，但这些研究忽略了一个问题，即南亚国家对化石燃料的严重依赖可能会阻碍它们降低年度排放数字。因此，本研究基于七个南亚国家的数据，评估提高互联网普及率是否会影响它们基于化石燃料消费的二氧化碳排放年增长率。总体而言，从实证分析中发现，更高的互联网普及率（以互联网用户在总人口中的份额增加来表示）有助于缓解年度二氧化碳排放增长率。此外，当考虑不同的互联网普及率指标时，互联网普及率与二氧化碳排放增长率之间的负相关关系似乎很稳健。此外，在南亚背景下，互联网普及率对二氧化碳排放增长率产生单向因果影响这一发现也证实了这种关系的稳健性。此外，结果表明，年度二氧化碳排放增长率受到自然资源依赖和金融发展的正向影响，而城市化从长期来看会抑制排放增长率。相比之下，清洁能源采用、外国直接投资和良好治理对二氧化碳排放增长率的影响在统计上尚无定论。因此，为确保该地区的可持续环境，南亚政策制定者应专注于发展基于绿色互联网的基础设施，同时制定战略计划，以减少对不清洁自然资源的依赖，促进全面采用清洁能源，推动低碳城市化进程，绿化国内金融部门，吸引清洁的外国直接投资，并提高治理质量。
