Assessing the effect of energy consumption and food production from agriculture on environmental degradation in Pakistan: Does institutional quality matter?

Integr Environ Assess Manag. 2023 Jun 24. doi: 10.1002/ieam.4800. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

The nexus between food production $\left(\mathrm{FP}\right),$ energy consumption $\left(\mathrm{EC}\right),$ institutional quality $\left(\mathrm{IQ}\right),$ and ecological degradation $\left(\mathrm{ED}\right)$ has significant implications for environmental sustainability. Nevertheless, environmental degradation caused by $\mathrm{FP}$ activities is a widely ignored topic, especially in Pakistan. To fill this void, we investigated the impact of energy use, food production, and institutional quality on Pakistan’s environmental degradation between 1990 and 2021. It also explores the moderating influence of $\mathrm{IQ}$ on $\mathrm{ED}.$ To evaluate this influence, we use the autoregressive distributed lag $\left(\mathrm{ARDL}\right)$ method for cointegration and the fully modified ordinary least squares $\left(\mathrm{FMOLS}\right)$ method for robustness estimation. Our empirical results show that whereas $\mathrm{FP}$ and $\mathrm{EC}$ contribute to pollution, $\mathrm{IQ}$ reduces the pace of environmental degradation. Furthermore, the presence of a strong $\mathrm{IQ}$ mitigates the harmful ecological effects of $\mathrm{FP}$ and $\mathrm{EC}$ . Moreover, the results revealed that unbiased domestic $\mathrm{IQ}$ is crucial to boosting energy and agricultural efficiency while reducing ${\mathrm{CO}}_2$ emissions. Our findings might be considered while developing public policies to reduce carbon emissions while increasing food production in a healthy environment.

PMID:37354032 | DOI:10.1002/ieam.4800