The dynamic nexus between economic growth, renewable energy use, urbanization, industrialization, tourism, agricultural productivity, forest area, and carbon dioxide emissions in the Philippines

Global climate change, intensified by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, particularly carbon dioxide (CO₂), provides a massive threat to human life, the environment, development, and sustainability. Consequently, reducing emissions and improving environmental conditions are now a global priority for promoting sustainable growth and preventing the adverse consequences of global warming and climate change. However, there is a paucity of research employing econometric methodologies to investigate the potential of emission reduction factors, particularly in the case of the Philippines. Thus, the present study explored the dynamic effects of economic growth, renewable energy use, urbanization, industrialization, tourism, agricultural productivity, and forest area in the Philippines in order to accomplish environmental sustainability by lowering CO₂ emissions. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach and the Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) methodology were used to scrutinize time series yearly data from 1990 to 2020. According to the estimates, a 1% rise in economic growth, urbanization, industrialization, and tourism will raise CO₂ emissions by 0.16%, 1.25%, 0.06%, and 0.02% in the Philippines, respectively. Furthermore, a 1% increase in renewable energy consumption, agricultural productivity, and forest area may result in CO₂ emissions reductions of 1.50%, 0.20%, and 3.46%, respectively. Furthermore, the pairwise Granger causality test was employed to capture the causal relationships between the variables. This article provides policy implications on low-carbon economies, promoting renewable energy use, sustainable urbanization, green industrialization, eco-friendly tourism, climate-smart agriculture, and sustainable forest management, all of which could help ensure environmental sustainability by lowering emissions.