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The purpose of this paper is to examine the dynamic linkages amongst ecological footprints, fossil fuel consumption, real income, globalization and population in Egypt in the period from 1971 to 2014.

The paper uses fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) methods to investigate the long run relationships amongst ecological footprints, economic growth, globalization, fossil fuel energy consumption and population. Moreover, the Toda–Yamamoto approach is conducted to examine the causal relationships between variables.

Empirical results of FMOLS and DOLS methods show that real income and fossil fuel consumption are responsible for deteriorating the environment, while globalization and population are found to mitigate it. As for Toda–Yamamoto–Granger causal relationship results, unidirectional causal relation from globalization, population and fossil fuel energy consumption to the ecological footprint exists. Moreover, bidirectional causal relation between real income on the one hand and globalization and the ecological footprint on the other hand is found.

Using carbon dioxide emissions has major weakness as carbon dioxide emissions are considered only part of the total environmental deterioration so this study is the first study for Egypt that uses the ecological footprint as an indicator for environmental quality and environmental pollution and links it with globalization, economic growth, population and fossil fuel energy consumption. Moreover, realizing the direction of causality between these variables might help policymakers in designing the policies to promote the shift towards clean energy sources, especially that achieving sustainable economic growth with more contribution to the global economy depending on diversification of energy sources without deteriorating the environment is considered one of the most important objectives of Egypt’s National Vision 2030.