| Abstrakt: |
International Humanitarian Law (IHL) propagates the need for environmental sustainability from warfare. Thus, the study explores the effect of Military Expenditures (ME) and their interaction effect with wars and conflicts on the environment in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region by using the dataset from 19 MENA countries for the period 1997-2020. The novel spatial econometrics is utilized to find the direct, spillovers, and total effects of military expenditures, renewable energy, economic progress, and wars and conflicts on CO2 emissions. The results substantiate the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) in the nexus between economic progress and emissions. Moreover, spillovers of CO2 emissions are found positive in the region. Renewable energy is found helpful in reducing emissions in local economies but could affect them in neighboring counterparts and the entire region. The military expenditures raise emissions in the entire region. Accordingly, military expenditures have adverse local and spillover environmental effects in the region. Moreover, wars and conflicts have positively moderated the connection between ME and emissions in the entire region. Thus, wars and conflicts in the MENA region are responsible for increasing military expenditures and emissions with spillover effects, which are damaging the ecology of this region. The study recommends that governments of this region should increase spending on renewable energy projects and reduce military expenditures. Moreover, the wars and conflicts should be resolved with dialogues to protect the region from CO2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
