Rethinking Sustainability: Human Development and Ecological Footprint Under Deglobalization Pressures

The accelerating global push for sustainable development has intensified debates over the compatibility between human development and environmental sustainability. While the Human Development Index (HDI) captures improvements in life expectancy, education, and income, it often coincides with heightened ecological pressures, as measured by ecological footprint (EF). This paper revisits the linkage between human development and ecological sustainability by introducing the moderating role of globalization—specifically, under contemporary trends of deglobalization. Based on a balanced panel dataset covering 140 countries from 1990 to 2022, the study first constructs linear models and then introduces the globalization index to develop a panel threshold model. The threshold value is used to quantitatively identify deglobalization, with lower index values indicating a deglobalization phase, in order to examine how the intensity of globalization alters the marginal impact of HDI on the ecological footprint, particularly across countries at different income levels. Across every income level, the analysis shows a strong and statistically significant relationship between human development and ecological pressure, but with heterogeneous magnitudes. More importantly, we identify significant nonlinear threshold effects, where lower levels of globalization—indicative of deglobalization pressures—exacerbate the environmental burden of human development. In contrast, deeper integration into global systems appears to attenuate this burden, particularly in lower‐ and middle‐income countries, through improved availability of environmentally friendly technologies and global best practices. The findings highlight that sustainability trade‐offs are highly context‐dependent, requiring nuanced policies amid rising protectionism.