INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 2024 (SCI-Expanded)
In recent years, a significant part of the literature has argued that green growth is an important dynamic that can be used to combat CO2 emissions. An important feature of the G7 countries is that they perform well in green growth indicators. Therefore, whether G7 countries can benefit from green growth for the carbon neutrality goals emerges as an important research topic. The study analyzes the green growth-CO2 emissions relationship for the G7 countries over the period 1990-2019 and considers the role of energy productivity. The study also integrates fixed capital, trade openness and ICT as other explanatory variables in the CO2 emissions model. The empirical analyses are performed by advanced panel techniques such as the Westerlund cointegration test, AMG and Driscoll-Kraay estimators, Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causality test. The findings reveals a long-run link among the variables. Green growth and energy productivity mitigate CO2 emissions while fixed capital, trade openness and ICT boost it. Bi-direcational cauasality is running between CO2 emissions and explantory variables. The findings recommend that policy makers of G7 countries should take steps to accelerate green growth and energy productivity performance in the fight against environmental pollution.