Unveiling the dynamic relationship between agriculture value addition, energy utilization, tourism and environmental degradation in South Asia

In the recent decade, the investigation of environmental degradation and its drivers has become a burning subject of dispute among the governments and their policymakers. However, various crucial drivers of environmental damages still have not been sufficiently analyzed in the existing literature. Considering this view, the current study investigates the impact of agricultural value-added, economic growth, non-renewable energy, renewable energy, and tourism on carbon dioxide emission (CO2) from 1995 to 2017 in South Asian countries. The results found that agricultural value-added, economic growth, non-renewable energy, and tourism sector development significantly increase the environmental degradation, depicting that these factors have a harmful contribution to the environmental quality. However, renewable energy consumption has some ability to improve the environmental quality in this region. Additionally, the results of the Dumitrescu and Hurlin casualty test confirm the feedback hypothesis between economic growth and carbon emissions. However, a conservation hypothesis exists between carbon emission, and agriculture and finally, the growth hypothesis is valid between tourism and carbon emissions. Consistent with these empirical findings, this article suggests some vital policy implications for South Asian countries to accomplish their sustainable development goals (SDGs).