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This study examines the effect of female governors (gender effect) on environmental performance in terms of state-level carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in United States.

The study used annual data from 1970 to 2020 to investigate the relationship between female political leadership and state-level CO2 emissions. Hypothesis was tested through ordinary least squares regression (OLS). The results of the study were also validated using propensity score matching and a difference-in-difference approach.

This study provides empirical insights into the relationship between female political leadership and state-level CO2 emissions. The findings indicate that female governors have a significant negative impact on state-level CO2 emissions per capita. These results suggest that female political leadership is associated with a reduction in CO2 emissions per capita at the state level. The results also show that states under the leadership of female governors experience lower levels of CO2 emissions than those with male governors, indicating female leadership’s potential to promote environmental sustainability.

The findings of this study have practical implications for policymakers, government officials, and other stakeholders involved in the formulation of strategies to promote environmental sustainability. This study highlights the significant role that female political leader play in mitigating CO2 emissions at the state level. It suggests that promoting female in political leadership positions can lead to more environmentally conscious policy decisions and actions, resulting in reduced CO2 emissions per capita. Policymakers should actively encourage women’s participation in leadership roles to utilize their potential contributions to advancing sustainability goals. Furthermore, organizations that focus on environmental issues should prioritize supporting and promoting female leaders who have demonstrated a commitment to environmental sustainability. Ultimately, this study highlights the need for female in political leadership as a potential strategy to address environmental challenges and advance a more sustainable future.

This study pioneers research on the links between female political leadership and state-level CO2 emissions. This study contributes to the literature by emphasizing the potential role of female political leaders in promoting environmental sustainability. Overall, this study enriches the social role and upper echelons theories literature through empirical evidence.

Purpose – To consider the potential for transport CO2 reductions in Oxfordshire. It examines the CO2 baseline within the county and elsewhere in the United Kingdom, assessing the high and low emitters in terms of relative transport CO2 emissions. A target for the county is developed at 1.2 tCO2 per capita by 2030, and ultimately 0.5 tCO2 per capita by 2050, and scenario analysis is used to assess the potential interventions, policy packages and different pathways available for CO2 emission reduction.

Methodology/approach – The central Oxfordshire transport model (COTOM) is used to quantify the likely impacts of different policy areas over the long term to 2030. It is illustrated how the strategic policy direction can be set within transport, and attempts are made to quantify the scale of likely impacts from the options available.

Findings – Current interventions and levels of funding for sustainable transport are not strong enough to significantly reduce transport CO2 emissions in line with the national UK targets and there is a significant underestimation of the scales of change required. There is a major discontinuity between the ‘greenwash’ of the conjecture at the national governmental level and the level of funding necessary to actually implement effective actions at the local level.

Originality/value – The chapter is original in illustrating how the strategic policy direction can be set within transport at the regional level and also in attempting to quantify the scale of likely impacts.

Growing food insecurity is a leading cause of fatalities, particularly in developing nations like Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. However, the rising energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are mostly associated with food production. Balancing the trade-offs between energy intensity and food security remains a top priority for environmentalists. Despite the critical role of the environment in food security, there is a scarcity of substantial studies that explore the statistical connections among food security, CO2 emissions, energy intensity, foreign direct investment (FDI) and per capita income. Therefore, this study aims to provide more precise and consistent estimates of per capita CO2 emissions by considering the interplay of food security and energy intensity within the context of emerging economies.

To examine the long-term relationships between CO2 emissions, food security, energy efficiency, FDI and economic development in emerging economies, this study employs correlated panel-corrected standard error, regression with Newey–West standard error and regression with Driscoll–Kraay standard error models (XTSCC). The analysis utilizes data spanning from 1980 to 2018 and encompasses 32 emerging economies.

The study reveals that increasing food security in a developing economy has a substantial positive impact on both CO2 emissions and energy intensity. Each model, on average, demonstrates that a 1 percent improvement in food security results in a 32% increase in CO2 levels. Moreover, the data align with the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) theory, as it indicates a positive correlation between gross domestic product (GDP) in developing nations and CO2 emissions. Finally, all experiments consistently demonstrate a robust correlation between the Food Security Index (FSI), energy intensity level (EIL) and exchange rate (EXR) in developing markets and CO2 emissions. This suggests that these factors significantly contribute to environmental performance in these countries.

This study introduces novelty by employing diverse techniques to uncover the mixed findings regarding the relationship between CO2 emissions and economic expansion. Additionally, it integrates energy intensity and food security into a new model. Moreover, the study contributes to the literature by advocating for a sustainable development goal (SDG)-oriented policy framework that considers all variables influencing economic growth.

The inherent linkages between climate and the habitability of the Earth are increasingly well recognized, and a convention could help to ensure that conserving the environment and developing the economy in the future must go hand in hand. Due to growing environmental concern, the United Nations General Assembly has set into motion an international negotiating process for a framework convention on climate change. One of the specific tasks in these negotiations is how to share the duties in reducing climate relevant gases, particularly carbon dioxide, between the industrial and the developing countries. The respective proposals could be among the most far‐reaching ever for socio‐economic development, indeed for global security and survival itself. While the negotiations will be about climate and protection of the atmosphere, they could lead to fundamental changes in energy, forestry, transport and technology policies, and to future development pathways with low greenhouse gas emissions. Addresses some of these aspects of a climate convention and a respective CO⊂2‐agreement, the Houston Protocol.

This study examines the relevance of information and communication technologies in the effect of gender economic inclusion on environmental sustainability.

The focus is on a panel of 42 sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2005–2020. The empirical evidence is based on generalized method of moments. The environmental sustainability indicator used is CO2 emissions per capita. Three indicators of women’s economic inclusion are considered: female labour force participation, female employment and female unemployment. The chosen ICT indicators are mobile phone penetration, Internet penetration and fixed broadband subscriptions.

The results show that: (1) fixed broadband subscriptions represent the most relevant ICT moderator of gender economic inclusion for an effect on CO2 emissions; (2) negative net effects are apparent for the most part with fixed broadband subscriptions (3) both positive ICT thresholds (i.e., critical levels for complementary policies) and negative ICT thresholds (i.e., minimum ICT levels for negative net effects) are provided; (4) ICT synergy effects are apparent for female unemployment, but not for female employment. In general, the joint effect of ICTs or their synergies and economic inclusion should be a concern for policymakers in order to better ensure sustainable development. Moreover, the relevant ICT policy thresholds and mobile phone threshold for complementary policy are essential in promoting a green economy.

The study complements the extant literature by assessing linkages between information technology, gender economic inclusion and environmental sustainability.

The present study investigates the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) and governance quality on carbon emissions in the Economics Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

To achieve the objective of this research, panel data for dependent and explanatory variables over the period 2005–2016, collected in the World Development Indicators (WDI) database and World Governance Indicators (WGI), are analyzed using the generalized method of moments (GMM). Also, the panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE) method is applied to the four segments of the overall sample to analyze the stability of the results.

The findings of this study are: (1) FDI inflows have a negative effect on carbon emissions in ECOWAS and (2) The interaction between FDI inflows and governance quality have a negative effect on carbon emissions. These results show the decreasing of environmental damage by increasing institutional quality. However, the estimation results on the country subsamples show similar and non-similar aspects.

This study suggests that policymakers in the ECOWAS countries should strengthen their environmental policies while encouraging FDI flows to be environmentally friendly.

The subject has rarely been explored in West Africa, with gaps such as the lack of use of institutional variables. This study contributes to the literature by drawing on previous work to examine the role of good governance on FDI and the CO2 emission relationship in the ECOWAS, which have received little attention. However, this research differs from previous work by subdividing the overall sample into four groups to test the stability of the results.

This paper aims to examine the stochastic convergence of the per capita CO₂ emissions among the top four crude oil exporter countries, namely, Canada, Iraq, Russia and Saudi Arabia, from 1960 to 2017. Assessing the stationarity and unit root properties of the environmental series in these countries is important as their large fossil fuel resources increases the potential for rising CO₂ emissions compared to other countries.

In addition to implementing the conventional unit root tests, the authors also benefit from the application of three nonlinear unit root tests, namely, wavelet unit root test, nonlinear unit root test of Güriş (2019) and the Fourier quantile unit root test. These methods are robust to the presence of possible structural breaks and other forms of nonlinearities, while the wavelet unit root test enables us to examine the stochastic behavior of the variables in both time and frequency domains. Hence, they all provide more reliable inferences on the convergences of the CO₂ emissions compared to their standard competitors.

The standard unit root test results show strong evidence in favor of non-stationarity in all countries. This conclusion supports the results of the other nonlinear unit root tests and the overall findings of the Fourier quantile unit root test. The wavelet unit root test provides a controversial finding. However, due to its limitations, its findings must be interpreted with caution. The details of the Fourier quantile unit root test indicate that per capita CO₂ emissions follow mean-reverting properties in middle quantile ranges for Canada, Russia and Iraq. This validates the asymmetric behaviors of per capita CO₂ emissions in these countries.

The novelty of the work can be stated in two ways. First, among the available studies, this is the first paper to emphasize the importance of examining the convergence of per capita CO₂ emissions among the top four oil exporters. Second, to the best of the knowledge, no study has yet been undertaken in which all these methods have been simultaneously applied. Sustainable environmental policies depend heavily on the CO₂ series’ properties. Thus, the findings can provide significant environmental and economic implications for policymakers to construct feasible and optimal policies in climate change mitigation.

This study is aimed at better understanding the evolution of inequality in carbon emission in intraincome and interincome groups in the world, and then to uncover the driving factors that affect inequality in carbon emission.

The approach is developed by combining the Theil index and the decomposition technique. Specifically, the Theil index is used to measure the inequality in carbon emissions from the perspective of global and each income group level. The extended logarithmic mean Divisia index was developed to explore the driving factors.

This study finds that the inequality in carbon emissions of intraincome group is getting better, whereas the inequality in carbon emission of interincome group is getting worse. And the difference in global carbon emissions between income groups is the main source of global carbon emission inequality, which is greater than that within each income group. In addition, the high-income group has transferred their carbon emissions to upper-middle income group by importing high-carbon-intensive products to meet the domestic demand, while lower-middle-income group do not fully participate in the international trade.

To alleviate the global carbon inequality, more attention should be paid to the inequality in carbon emission of interincome group, especially the trade between high-income group and upper-middle income group. From the perspective of driving factors, the impact of import and export trade dependence on the per capita carbon emissions of different income groups can almost offset each other, so the trade surplus effect should be the focus of each group.

In order to consider the impact of international trade, this study conducts a comprehensive analysis of global carbon emissions inequality from the perspective of income levels and introduces the import and export dependence effect and the trade surplus effect into the analysis framework of global carbon emission inequality drivers, which has not been any research carried out so far. The results of this paper not only provide policy recommendations for mitigating global carbon emissions but also provide a new research perspective for subsequent inequality research.

Fairness is central to any multilateral regime, that is, any agreement between multiple nation-states to address and resolve a common problem. Climate change mitigation is among the key global environmental concerns that will require a common agenda, approach, and set of actions by the community of nations. To that end, global climate negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, 1992) are centered on establishing a multilateral framework to control greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from all nations and to help those who would be affected by climate change.

The purpose of this paper is to quantitatively examine if varying household consumption activities at different income levels drove CO₂ emissions to different degrees in Mexico from 1990 to 2014.

The paper applied a simple expenditure-CO₂ emissions elasticity model – a top-down approach – using data from consumption-based CO₂ emission inventories and the “Household Income and Expenditure Survey” and assuming a range of 0.7-1.0 elasticity values.

The paper results show a large carbon inequality among income groups in Mexico throughout the period. The household consumption patterns at the highest income levels are related to significantly more total CO₂ emissions (direct + indirect) than the household consumption patterns at the lowest income levels, in absolute terms, per household and per capita. In 2014, for example, the poorest household decile emitted 1.6 tCO₂ per capita on average, while the wealthiest decile reached 8.6 tCO₂ per capita.

The results suggest that it is necessary to rethink the effect of consumption patterns on climate change and the allocation of mitigation responsibilities, thus opening up complementary options for designing mitigation strategies and policies.

The paper represents an alternative approach for studying CO₂ emissions responsibility in Mexico from the demand side, which has been practically absent in previous studies. The paper thereby opens a way for studying and discussing climate change in terms of consumption and equity in the country.