Zia Ur Rahman

To enact sustainable health and development, both the developed and emerging economies are focusing on facilitating the health sector while increasing their economic well-being. To examine the health-related costs and economic growth, we used variables including public health expenditure, private health expenditure, environmental quality, environment index, foreign direct investment, age, education, and economic growth. A panel dataset of six developing countries for the 1994–2021 period was analyzed. By using the novel econometric techniques of continuously updated fully modified (CUP-FM) and continuously biased corrected approach (CUP-BC), the results reveal a uniform positive correlation between public–private health spending and economic growth. The long-run estimation of the first and second models showed that CO₂ emissions and the environment index positively impacted the government’s healthcare spending. All four long-run models showed a uniformly positive correlation between public and private health spending and economic growth.

In this digital age, promoting economic development through technology innovation and adoption has become a pressing matter, contributing to increased productivity and, in turn, carbon emissions. Consequently, this study employs a novel technique (Newey–West Standard Error Method, Technology Adaptation Model) to quantify information and communication technology (ICT) adoption rates as a proxy indicator for evaluating the Persian Gulf economy’s technology development. Moreover, this study investigates the evidence of the environmental Kuznets curve, with trade openness, technological adoption, and innovation as sustainable development controls. The findings reveal that two of three technological innovation instruments, fixed telephone, and internet subscriptions, increase carbon emissions. In contrast, mobile cellular subscriptions simultaneously reduce carbon emissions in the Persian Gulf. Furthermore, measures of technology adoption, high-technology exports, and electricity use contribute to the increase in carbon emissions. Trade openness also raises carbon emissions in the Persian Gulf. These findings suggest that policymakers must develop technological innovation and adoption strategies that effectively promote a greener environment.

Digitalization has emerged as a new hope for low-carbon sustainable economic growth after its successful trial during the COVID-19 measures. Therefore, both developed and developing economies focus on digitalization to cope with carbon neutrality targets. Thus, this study attempted to generate a meaningful relationship between the digital economy and green energy, innovation, and environmental tax policy to capture the role of factors in acquiring carbon neutrality. For the abovementioned objectives, modern econometric methods, such as the Kilian bias-adjusted bootstrap, were adopted to evaluate the Chinese dataset between 1990 and 2021. The results indicate that the study factors play a significant role in acquiring carbon neutrality in the long-term Chinese economy. Furthermore, quantile autoregressive distributed lag model (QARDL) indicates that all the factors influence carbon neutrality in various quantiles. Consequently, the digital economy, green energy and innovation, and environmental taxes significantly assist in attaining carbon neutrality in the long term, and the ecological Kuznets curve prevails in the economy. Therefore, radical and wide-ranging policy implications are required in many areas including environmental restrictions, digital economy promotion, green and sustainable technologies, and clean energy sources.

Environmental degradation, pollution, and rising temperatures pose a hazard to the world. A carbon-free economy requires policies to preserve sustainability, development, and the environment. Carbon taxing has emerged as a new hope for low-carbon sustainable economic growth after its successful trial in the developed and developing world. Implementing carbon taxation, energy transition, and green innovation can provide effective answers for defending the globe from environmental challenges. Therefore, both developed and developing economies focus on carbon taxing and green innovation to cope with carbon neutrality targets. The objectives of this study were to examine carbon taxing, green innovation, energy transition, digital infrastructure, sustainable mineral extraction and gross domestic product in acquiring carbon neutrality in Global South (China, India and Pakistan). For this purpose, the global south dataset from 1990–2022 was analyzed. Novel econometric methods Cross-sectional augmented autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) were used for estimations. The results reveal that carbon taxing, green innovation (GI), energy transition (EN), digital infrastructure (DI), sustainable mineral extraction (MN) and gross domestic product (GDP) significantly affects carbon neutrality. Furthermore, carbon taxing, energy transition, and green innovation significantly assist in attaining carbon neutrality in the long run. Green innovation has a coefficient of 4.3156 with a p-value of 0.000, indicating a highly significant impact on decarbonization. Energy transition, digital Infrastructure, mineral extraction, and GDP also show statistically significant effects with p-values all below 0.01. Policy measures are required in carbon taxation, energy transition, green innovation, and digital infrastructure usage in achieving carbon neutrality. The governments should encourage the use of green energy solutions through subsidies and support technology that reduces carbon emissions. This study contributes a novel framework of carbon taxing and green innovation policies for carbon neutralization in the global south.