Political competition and environment quality: a study of India

The focus of sustainable development goals (SDGs) is to promote the use of renewable energy so that countries can achieve better environmental quality. However, the progression is plodding, and still, 80% of energy comes mainly from conventional sources in developing countries. The implementation of procedures depends on the political attitudes, political stability, and quality of institutions. India has a diverse political structure ranging from central government to state government to local governments. In the late '80 s, India witnessed a stiff rise in regional and national political parties, which leads more political competition. This paper tries to explain the possible relationship between political competition and CO₂ emission in India. With the application of the time series non-linear ARDL (NARDL) model, this study tries to find the asymmetric relationship between political competition and CO₂ emission. In our empirical model, we also include other important elements of environmental quality like innovation and fossil fuel consumption. Empirical results show that political competition is asymmetrically related to CO₂ emissions in the long run. Fossil fuel consumption and innovation also have a significant relationship with emissions. Based on the results, a few policy recommendations have been discussed.