Towards Achieving Sustainable Development: Role of Technology Innovation, Technology Adoption and CO 2 Emission for BRICS

Chi-Wei Su, Yannong Xie, Sadaf Shahab, Ch. Muhammad Nadeem Faisal, Muhammad Hafeez and Ghulam Muhammad Qamri
Additional contact information
Chi-Wei Su: School of Economics, Qingdao University, Qingdao 266071, China
Yannong Xie: School of Economics, Qingdao University, Qingdao 266071, China
Sadaf Shahab: Department of Economics, Federal Urdu University of Arts Science and Technology, Islamabad 75300, Pakistan
Ch. Muhammad Nadeem Faisal: Department of Computer Science, National Textile University, Faisalabad 37610, Pakistan
Muhammad Hafeez: Faculty of Management & Administrative Sciences, University of Sialkot, Punjab 51080, Pakistan
Ghulam Muhammad Qamri: School of Economics, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: In the digital era, technology innovation and adoption trigger economic growth and enhance CO 2 emissions through productivity, which places it in the mainstream policy debate. For BRICS economies, this paper uses the first method proposed in the literature to quantify their information and communication technology (ICT) and innovatively links each country to their information technology adoption rate, as a surrogate indicator for measuring information and communication technology. Environmental Kuznets curve evidence is also examined, using technology innovation, technology adoption, and trade openness as the control variables for sustainable development. The results show that two out of three technology innovation instruments, fixed telephone, and broadband subscriptions increase CO 2 emissions. Simultaneously, mobile cellular subscriptions have a lowering effect on CO 2 emission in BRICS. The technology adoption indicators, high-technology exports, and electric power consumption also cause an upsurge in CO 2 emission. Moreover, trade openness also enriches the level of CO 2 emission in the BRICS regions. There is a need to devise technology innovation and adoption policies to better use technology and to ensure a green environment.

Keywords: technology innovation; technology adoption; BRICS; CO 2 emission; Driscoll–Kraay panel regression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/1/277/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/1/277/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:1:p:277-:d:473673

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().