Environmental sustainability in Vietnam: evaluating the criticality of economic globalisation, renewable energy, and natural resources

Vietnam’s goal of achieving a certain level of decarbonisation by 2030 is difficult despite its awareness of the threat posed by climate change. However, the country is endowed with natural resources and the increasing dependence on the global economy coupled with greater investment in alternative energy sources are some of the factors responsible for economic expansion in recent years. Hence, the question arises “what are the environmental impacts of economic globalisation, economic growth, natural resources, and renewable energy in Vietnam?”, which constitutes a major policy problem. In this study, a time series dataset stretching from 1984 to 2019 is employed to scrutinise the impact of economic globalisation, economic growth, natural resources, and renewable energy on Vietnam’s CO2 emissions. This goal is achieved by employing the ARDL bounds testing procedure, dynamic ARDL, and spectral Granger-causality test. Moreover, the outcomes from the dynamic ARDL showed that economic globalisation and economic growth lead to environmental deterioration, whereas it is mitigated by renewable energy. Lastly, the outcomes from the spectral Granger-causality test indicate that a feedback causality association exists between CO2 emissions and the regressors, namely economic globalisation, renewable energy, and economic growth, while no causality connection exists between CO2 emissions and natural resources. Hence, we suggest that actions for reducing emissions should involve the implementation of energy-efficient techniques and renewable technologies within the energy value chain.