Can education lower the environmental degradation? Bootstrap panel Granger causality analysis for emerging countries

Environmental degradation, which became evident after the Industrial Revolution, is one of the most important problems to be solved in the twenty-first century. The need for energy in the production process has caused the rapid use of carbon stores, and global warming has been experienced with the increase in carbon emissions. Due to the fact that global warming has reached a level that threatens human life and negatively affects the quality of life, many studies have been carried out to find ways of preventing the decrease in the life quality caused by environmental degradation. The policies developed by politicians to reduce this degradation have been insufficient, and the increase in environmental degradation has continued. The increase in needs with the increasing population, more consume more happiness and costly access to clean energy sources are the reasons for the failure of these policies. Failures of policies implemented on a macro-scale have led to searches for different policies. In this process, education-oriented policies came to the fore. Education has an important role in production, technological progress, and awareness about the environment, which are determinants of environmental degradation. Although the education is an important policy tool to be used against environmental degradation in the future, studies on the effects of education on the environment are limited and theoretical. Hence, the purpose of this research was to investigate empirically whether education is an important policy tool for addressing environmental quality in developing countries. To this end, the causal relationship between education and CO2 emissions for 14 developing countries from 1990 to 2017 was explored using the de Kónya method (Econ Modell 23(6):978–992, 2006. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econmod.2006.04.008 ). This method uses an augmented panel non-causality procedure that controls cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneity. The results showed that there is a causality relation of education to CO2 emissions in Chile and Poland, countries with the highest education and income levels among the emerging nations. Also, the corrective effect of income level expressed in EKC on the environment can be realized at lower income levels thanks to education. In this respect, education policy can be seen as an important tool in preventing environmental degradation, particularly in developing countries.