Investigating the Impact of Multiple Factors on CO 2 Emissions: Insights from Quantile Analysis

This study investigates the impacts of alternative energy use, urbanization, GDP, agriculture, ICT development, and FDI on carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions in the 14 leading CO 2 -emitting countries in Asia. This research comprises various econometric techniques, including MMQR, FMOLS, DOLS, and Driscoll–Kraay, to extend the data analysis from 1996 to 2020. The findings provide significant support for an inverted U-shaped link between economic expansion and environmental deterioration, known as the environmental Kuznets curve. Moreover, this paper verifies that the GDP square, renewable energy use, and agriculture are shown to help to decrease pollution, as indicated by the research findings. On the contrary, urbanization and the GDP are demonstrated to be variables that contribute to carbon emissions. Furthermore, the panel quantile regression models validate that the impacts of each explanatory variable on CO 2 emissions vary across various quantiles. Finally, this analysis provides valuable suggestions to scholars, environmentalists, politicians, and authorities for identifying and mitigating the main cause of emissions.