Environmental sustainability through renewable energy and banking sector development: policy implications for N-11 countries

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Climate change has become an alarming condition for developed and developing countries. The main reason for this is the use of non-renewable energy...     

A Cournot competition model with the uniform pollution tariff: an application to NAFTA

This paper investigates the impact of a uniform pollution tariff on production, consumption and consumer welfare in the framework of the Cournot competition. It suggests that the uniform pollution tariff would raise the welfare of US consumers. However, it would penalise the higher-cost producer in the country where environmental regulations are more stringent. The policy implication is that economic integration, such as NAFTA, should take discriminatory pollution tariffs into consideration.     

The role of natural resources,globalization, and renewable energy in testing the EKC hypothesis in MINT countries: new evidence from Method of Moments Quantile Regression approach

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - We employ the new Method of Moments Quantile Regression approach to expose the role of natural resources, renewable energy, and globalization in...     

Testing the EKC hypothesis by considering trade openness,urbanization, and financial development: the case of Turkey

This study investigates the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis for the case of Turkey from 1960 to 2013 by considering energy consumption, trade, urbanization, and financial development variables. Although previous literature examines various aspects of the EKC hypothesis for the case of Turkey, our model augments the basic model with several covariates to develop a better understanding of the relationship among the variables and to refrain from omitted variable bias. The results of the bounds test and the error correction model under autoregressive distributed lag mechanism suggest long-run relationships among the variables as well as proof of the EKC and the scale effect in Turkey. A conditional Granger causality test reveals that there are causal relationships among the variables. Our findings can have policy implications including the imposition of a “polluter pays” mechanism, such as the implementation of a carbon tax for pollution trading, to raise the urban population’s awareness about the importance of adopting renewable energy and to support clean, environmentally friendly technology.     

Testing the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis: the role of energy consumption and democratic accountability

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Considering the role democratic structures play in shaping the policies that enhance environmental quality, this paper tests the environmental Kuznets...     

A composite receptor and dispersion model approach for estimation of effective emission factors for vehicles

It is difficult to estimate vehicular emission factors at traffic junctions for use in dispersion modelling studies. Firstly, because the vehicles are in various modes of operation and secondly, it is difficult to delineate the effects of other contributing sources, mainly the effects of road dust and deposited constituents, which are very prominent at traffic junctions in India. Factor analysis-multiple regression (FA-MR), a receptor modelling technique has been used in this study for apportioning the contributing sources. The measurement data consist of one year's temporal variation of suspended particulate matter (SPM), analysed for its trace metal constituents, and two gaseous components NO₂ and SO₂ at two traffic junctions in Mumbai (India). FA-MR apportioned 40% of the observed SPM to road dust and 15% to vehicular sources. Of the total Pb observed in the SPM, FA-MR apportioned 60% to vehicular sources and 20% to road dust. The field-observed vehicular counts, meteorological parameters and road geometry were used in California line source dispersion model to estimate the effective vehicular emission factor for Pb at one traffic junction. This derived emission factor was used to predict the Pb concentration at second (independent observation) traffic junction. The result was found to be more satisfactory than using default emission factors obtained from literature. Similarly, effective vehicular emission factor for NO₂ was also evaluated for one site and tested for predicting concentrations at the other site.     

Prediction of physico-chemical properties for PCs/DFs using the UNIFAC model with an alternative approximation for group assignment

The original-type UNIFAC model was used to predict the environmentally important physico-chemical properties of PCDDs/DFs, such as aqueous solubility, Henry's law constant, and 1-octanol/water partition coefficient, through the UNIFAC-derived infinite dilution activity coefficient. In this application, we suggest an alternative approximation that the aromatic ether group AC-O in PCDD/DF molecules is replaced with the aliphatic ether group CH-O, because the AC-O group is not available in the conventional UNIFAC model. With this approximation, the ability of the UNIFAC model to predict those properties was examined by comparing with experimental data. The UNIFAC model provided comparatively good estimation results. From these results, it is shown that the alternative approximation is useful for the UNIFAC estimation of physico-chemical properties for PCDDs/DFs. Furthermore, the predicted solubilities of 2,3,7,8-T4CDD and O8CDD in organic solvents and the co-solvency effect on solubility of PCDDs in methanol/water mixture indicate that the UNIFAC calculation presented here could well predict the physico-chemical properties of PCDDs/DFs in various solution conditions.     

Heterogeneous effects of remittances and institutional quality in reducing environmental deficit in the presence of EKC hypothesis: A global study with the application of panel quantile regression

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - This study investigates the heterogeneous effects of remittance inflows, institutional quality, foreign direct investment, energy consumption,...     

Value addition in the services sector and its heterogeneous impacts on CO2 emissions: revisiting the EKC hypothesis for the OPEC using panel spatial estimation techniques

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - This study examines the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis in the context of 12 members of the OPEC by utilizing data on both the aggregate...     

Correction to: Heterogeneous effects of remittances and institutional quality in reducing environmental deficit in the presence of EKC hypothesis: a global study with the application of panel quantile regression

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13791-z     

The environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis for Bangladesh: the importance of natural gas,liquefied petroleum gas,and hydropower consumption

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Mitigating environmental pollution has become a global agenda keeping the sustainability of socioeconomic and environmental development into...     

Game theory approach for the design of an optimal air pollution control system for thermal power plants

A procedure, based on the concept of game theory, for the optimum design of an air pollution control system in thermal power plants is described. The problem is formulated as a four-criteria optimisation problem, with the cost of the electrostatic precipitator, the cost of the stack, the maximum ground-level concentration of particulate matter and the maximum ground-level concentration of sulfur dioxide as the objectives. The efficiency of the precipitator and the height of the stack are treated as the design variables. Geometric constraints in the form of lower and upper bounds on the design variables are imposed on the problem. The design problem is formulated as a four-person game, and the Nash non-cooperative solution is evaluated for irrational play to determine the starting point of the game. For the cooperative game, a supercriterion is formulated for the overall benefit of the players. The game is terminated when the optimal trade-off between the objectives is reached with the maximisation of the supercriterion. The methodology is demonstrated by solving a practical problem related to the design of an air pollution control system for a 210 MW thermal power plant.     

Biofuel consumption,biodiversity, and the environmental Kuznets curve: trivariate analysis in a panel of biofuel consuming countries

This study examined the relationship between biofuel consumption, forest biodiversity, and a set of national scale indicators of per capita income, foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, trade openness, and population density with a panel data of 12 biofuels consuming countries for a period of 2000 to 2013. The study used Global Environmental Facility (GEF) biodiversity benefits index and forest biodiversity index in an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) framework. The results confirmed an inverted U-shaped relationship between GEF biodiversity index and per capita income, while there is flat/no relationship between carbon emissions and economic growth, and between forest biodiversity and economic growth models. FDI inflows and trade openness both reduce carbon emissions while population density and biofuel consumption increase carbon emissions and decrease GEF biodiversity index. Trade openness supports to increases GEF biodiversity index while it decreases forest biodiversity index and biofuel consumption in a region.

     

The effects of renewable and nonrenewable energy consumption on the ecological footprint: the role of environmental policy in BRICS countries

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - This study aims to investigate the impact of economic growth, renewable energy consumption, nonrenewable energy consumption, industrialization, and...     

Effect of cations on copper toxicity to wheat root: implications for the biotic ligand model

The extent to which calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium and hydrogen ions independently mitigate Cu rhizotoxicity to wheat (Triticumaestivum) in nutrient solutions was examined. Increasing activities of Ca(2+) and Mg(2+) but not Na(+), K(+) and H(+) linearly increased the 2 d EC50 (as Cu(2+) activity), supporting the concept that some cations can compete with Cu(2+) for binding the active sites at the terrestrial organism-solution interface (i.e., the biotic ligand, BL). According to the biotic ligand model (BLM) concept, the conditional stability constants for the binding of Cu(2+), Ca(2+) and Mg(2+) to the BL were derived from the toxicity data. They were 6.28, 2.43 and 3.34 for logK(CuBL), logK(CaBL) and logK(MgBL), respectively. It was calculated that on average 43.6% of BL sites need to be occupied by Cu(2+) to induce 50% root growth inhibition. Using the estimated parameters, a BLM was successfully developed to predict Cu toxicity for wheat as a function of solution characteristics.     

Wavelet and Fourier augmented convergence analysis of methane emissions in more than two centuries: implications for environmental management in OECD countries

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Addressing the challenges posed by pollutants is necessary to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 13, which involves climate change mitigation and...