The influence of tourism development and economic policy uncertainties on environmental sustainability is substantial. Promoting responsible tourism and using sustainable tourism practises, like offering eco-friendly lodging, is a key part of protecting natural habitats and lowering carbon footprints. Hence, this study tries to examine the relationship between tourism development, economic policy uncertainty, renewable energy, and natural resources on the ecological footprint of India during 1990-2022. This study applies a novel dynamic ARDL simulation approach for long-run and short-run analyses. The study also employs frequency-domain causality to check the causal relationship between the variables. The result reveals that tourism has a positive effect on the ecological footprint. Similarly, economic policy uncertainty has a positive and significant effect on the ecological footprint in India during the sample period. Additionally, natural resource rent shows a positive effect on the ecological footprint or deteriorating environmental quality in the short and long run in the sample period. However, renewable energy consumption indicates a negative effect on the ecological footprint. The results reveal that TDI and EPU have rejected the null hypothesis of no Granger cause in the long, medium, and short term. While renewable energy has a causal relationship with ecological footprints in both the long run and medium run, it is imperative for India to adopt measures that facilitate the advancement of sustainable tourism, with a particular focus on promoting environmentally friendly lodging options, enhancing public transportation systems, and implementing effective waste management strategies.
Considering how crucial environmental quality is to development, production often takes precedence over the development process when certain macroeconomic policies are being implemented. This phenomenon has been the subject of several studies conducted in various regions and nations. In this context, the recent article explores the nonlinear effects of industrial output, renewable energy, technological innovations, energy efficiency, and urbanization on CO2 emissions in the top ten industrialized countries. It recommends contradictory policy approaches due to its reported conflicting outcomes, opening up new research directions. To this end, the study relies on advanced econometric tools such as panel QARDL (Quantile Autoregressive Distributed Lag) and the nonparametric quantile Granger causality (NPQGC) test to attain robust results. The findings suggest that industrial output and urbanization significantly deteriorate environmental quality by increasing CO2 emissions across various time horizons. However, renewable energy, technological innovations, and energy efficiency have a significant influence towards enhancing environmental quality. Notably, industrialization and urbanization become environmentally friendly when energy efficiency is integrated with these variables. Additionally, the NPQGC test supports the main results by confirming the Granger causality between the modelled series. Based on the outcomes, the study suggests that the integration of energy efficiency with industrialization and urbanization can significantly contribute to achieving a sustainable environment.