Does ICT trade facilitate renewable energy transition and environmental sustainability? Evidence from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Maldives

Consumption of fossil fuels has triggered the worldwide awareness to attain socioeconomic and environmental sustainability, particularly by enhancing renewable energy use and mitigating the environmental adversities, in tandem. Against this background, this paper aimed to investigate the impacts of promoting ICT trade, through liberalization of the associated trade barriers, on the prospects of undergoing renewable energy transition and limiting environmental degradation by curbing CO2 emissions across six South Asian economies. The overall results from the econometric analyses, in a nutshell, confirm that higher degrees of openness to ICT trade lead to greater consumption of renewable energy, improve energy use efficiency levels and enhance access to cleaner cooking fuels. However, ICT trade fails to elevate the renewable energy shares in aggregate final energy consumption figures in South Asia. Besides, ICT trade is also seen to boost CO2 emissions across this region; although the impacts seem to reverse upon enhancement in renewable energy consumption levels along with liberalization of the ICT trade barriers. Thus, these results impose key policy implications for the South Asian governments for simultaneously ensuring energy security and sustaining environmental well-being across South Asia.