Analyzing the nexus between tourism and CO2 emissions: the role of renewable energy and R&D

This study aims to investigate the relationship between tourism development, renewable energy consumption (REN), research and development (R&D) expenditure, and CO2 emissions in 12 emerging markets and middle-income Europe spanning 1999-2020. We applied the panel autoregressive distributed lag and the Driscoll-Kraay estimator to determine the relationship between variables. According to both estimators' results, a U-shaped relationship exists between economic growth and CO2 emissions. This result indicates that the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis is invalid in these countries. Furthermore, REN and R&D contribute to decreasing CO2 emissions and stimulating sustainable development. However, the impact of tourism development on CO2 emissions is found to be negative in panel autoregressive distributed lag but positive in the Driscoll and Kraay estimator for fixed and random effects. Moreover, the Dumitrescu and Hurlin panel causality test reveals a two-way causal relationship between R&D and CO2 emissions and a one-way causal linkage running from economic growth, the square of economic growth, and tourist arrival to CO2 emissions. Overall, our results prove the existence of a relationship between international tourism and CO2 emissions. Furthermore, our results suggest some policy recommendations for policymakers to reduce CO2 emissions through REN, R&D, green economic development, and establishing an ecologically friendly tourism policy.