الملخص الإنجليزي
The mounting interest in the environment triggered the ' 'scholar's attention and effort to
study the determinants of environmental degradation and quality. Precedently, researchers
employed CO2 emissions as a proxy for environmental degradation. However, this
indicator is encountered insufficient in capturing resource use levels and pollution damage
to different aspects of the ecosystem. As a result, the ecological footprint concept is a
holistic measure of environmental degradation, as it can encompass the resource
consumption and pollution of six land types, including cropland, grazing land, fishing
ground, built-up land, forest, and carbon land. The ecological Footprint has evolved from
a two-dimensional representation of resource consumption and pollution to a three dimensional model, including resource use and pollution, as well as the time (years)
difference between biological regeneration and human consumption.
This study is carried out to explore the effect of trade market diversification, economic
growth, energy consumption, and foreign direct investment on the two-dimensional and
three-dimensional ecological Footprint in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries
using 19 years (2000-2018) data base. The Im, Pesaran, and Shin (IPS) panel unit root test
was implemented to check the stationarity of the variables, followed by investigating the
existence of the long-run relationship through the Padroni cointegration test. The pooled
mean group-autoregressive distributed lags (PMG-ARDL) estimator was used to estimate
the long-run and short-run coefficients for the two models of ecological Footprint.
Our results showed that the influence of the explanatory variables: trade market
concentration, foreign direct investment, economic growth, and energy consumption
increase environmental degradation in the long run. The Environmental Kuznets Curve
(EKC) hypothesis was proved in the long run for the two-dimensional model, indicating
that the GCC countries, in the long run, will reach the third phase of the EKC, where
pollution will decrease while continuing economic growth. In other words, an additional
increase in the GCC countries' income will simultaneously reduce environmental
degradation and resource use. This study recommends that the GCC countries diversify
their export partners as the trade (export) concentration accelerates environmental
degradation. Additionally, the GCC countries should establish more stringent
environmental regulations and attract foreign cleaner industries apart from the petroleum
sector., The GCC countries would need to switch to renewable and cleaner energy sources
to achieve a zero-carbon goal by 2050.
