Revisiting the impact of trade openness on environmental sustainability in Belt and Road countries: a heterogeneous...

The nations participating in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are particularly vulnerable to the challenges posed by climate change due to their extensive trading activities. The need to protect the environment and mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change in these countries is of utmost importance. Therefore, this study contributes to the scientific understanding of this issue by examining the relationship between trade openness and environmental sustainability in 89 BRI countries from 1990 to 2020. Additionally, control variables, including economic growth, energy consumption, urbanization, industrialization, and foreign direct investment, are considered to address omitted variable bias issues. The study utilizes the Augmented Mean Group (AMG) and Common Correlated Effects Mean Group (CCEMG) regression estimators, and the findings reveal that trade openness improves environmental sustainability. However, economic growth, energy consumption, urbanization, and industrialization degrade environmental sustainability. Interestingly, the results affirm foreign direct investment as a trivial determinant of environmental sustainability. Regarding causal relationships, reciprocal causalities are observed between trade openness and carbon emissions, energy consumption and carbon emissions, and urbanization and carbon emissions. Furthermore, one-way causalities exist from economic growth to carbon emissions and from carbon emissions to foreign direct investment. Nevertheless, no causal relationship is identified between industrialization and carbon emissions. Based on these significant findings, it is recommended that China, as a prominent player in the BRI, takes further steps to enhance and promote energy-efficient practices in BRI countries. One practical approach is the establishment of energy efficiency standards for the goods and services traded with these countries.