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Abbas, Sohail; Dastgeer, Ghulam
doi: 10.1111/1477-8947.12230pmid: N/A
Rainfall and temperature are essential climate parameters that determine crop yield variability at a regional level. The purpose of this study is to analyse the impacts of climate variability on the Kharif rice crop in the Punjab regions, Pakistan for the period of 1979–2018. Skewness and kurtosis, standardization, and Mann–Kendall methods were used to measure the effects of climate variability on Kharif rice yield over the Punjab regions, Pakistan. As compared to other regions, high variability in rice yield is found in the Sargodha region. Results revealed that high maximum and minimum temperatures were noticed in all investigated regions of Punjab. More variation in minimum temperature is detected than the maximum temperature in the Central region. The regions in Southern and Western Punjab were mostly influenced by maximum temperature. Mean temperature shows a significant negative relationship to rice yield during a vegetative phase in the Gujranwala and Rawalpindi regions. The maximum temperature has a negative significant effect on the plant establishment resulting in a reduction in the number of rice plants during the tillering and stem elongates stages in Bahawalpur and Sargodha regions. In the Gujranwala and Multan regions, high maximum temperature increases the floral initiation in the rice plant which reduces the rice grain weight in the heading and flowering stages. The minimum temperature declares a significant negative effect on the Kharif yield of rice in the Gujranwala, Faisalabad, and Multan zones during the re‐plantation stage. Rainfall has a significant positive impact on rice yield during the re‐plantation and tillering stages in the Lahore, Sargodha, and D.G. Khan regions, respectively. In other regions, rainfall indicates an insignificant effect in the re‐plantation stage. Overall, rainfall indicates significant effects in re‐plantation and tillering stages in the Lahore, Sargodha, and D.G. Khan zones. The outcomes of the research indicate how the regional variability in rainfall and temperature affects Kharif rice yield in Punjab, Pakistan.
Bryant, Chris; Mitchell, Matthew I.
doi: 10.1111/1477-8947.12232pmid: N/A
In recent years, many have raised concerns regarding the need to develop sustainable practices in the cocoa sector and to prepare for impending threats associated with climate change. Although evidence suggests more needs to be done to address the environmental concerns surrounding cocoa, the sustainability of the sector cannot be understood without recognizing other socio‐economic and socio‐political factors. This paper uses a case study of Ghana—the world's second largest producer of cocoa—to problematize the often‐simplistic claims concerning the fate of the crop. While the paper draws upon a diverse disciplinary body of literature, it uses a political ecology lens to analyse the multifaceted problems facing the cocoa industry. The paper derives insights from 131 interviews conducted with a wide range of stakeholder groups in Ghana's capital (Accra) and leading cocoa‐producing regions (Ashanti and Western). The analysis reveals the need to challenge dominant narratives about the cocoa‐climate change nexus, as it highlights other threats to the sector. This includes the difficulty of securing youth labourers, the problem of “galamsey” (i.e., illegal artisanal mining), the issue of land scarcity, and the politicization of migrant workers.
Tinta, Abdoulganiour Almame; Ouedraogo, Salifou; Thiombiano, Noel
doi: 10.1111/1477-8947.12240pmid: N/A
This study investigates the nexus between economic growth, financial development, and renewable energy consumption in Sub‐Saharan African countries. Using a dynamic approach and seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) from 48 countries over the period 2000–2019, the findings show that financial development, government expenditures, capital, international trade, education, and the quality of governance have positive impacts on economic growth while inflation has a negative effect. In the long run, energy consumption and foreign direct investments increase economic growth only in high income and upper middle‐income countries (HI‐UMIC). In contrast, in lower middle‐income countries (LMIC) and low income countries (LIC), the cost of transforming renewable energies is a burden for growth. This reverse effect on growth in LMIC and LIC is amplified by natural resource dependence and foreign direct investments (FDI) volatility. Furthermore, renewable energy consumption is driven by financial development, growth, urbanization, foreign direct investment, education, and the quality of governance via scale effect. From the results, new insights for policymakers such as fiscal policies, trade‐led growth policies, and monetary policies, are provided to support the renewable energy sector, enhance financial development and economic growth.
doi: 10.1111/1477-8947.12235pmid: N/A
Although researchers have made significant efforts to explain the influence of institutions on environmental indicators such as CO2 emissions, the relationship between institutional quality and the ecological footprint has been neglected. The gap in the literature reveals an outstanding question: can institutions reduce their countryʼs ecological footprint? As a result, this study aims to investigate the effects of institutional quality and control variables on the ecological footprint for the period 1992–2015 in E‐7 countries through the AMG and CCEMG estimators. The findings show that institutional quality reduces the ecological footprint for the entire panel. Conversely, economic growth and energy consumption increase ecological pressure on E‐7 countries. In addition, the impact of institutional quality on the ecological footprint demonstrates heterogeneity at the country level. While institutions decrease the ecological footprint in China, India, Indonesia, and Russia, the study does not find such a relationship in other countries. Besides, energy consumption seems to be the most important factor in increasing ecological pressure in all countries. As drawn from the results, it can be said that improving institutional quality and increasing renewable resources in the energy portfolio are strategic actions in terms of improving environmental quality in E‐7 countries.
Khan, Habib Hussain; Samargandi, Nahla; Ahmed, Adeel
doi: 10.1111/1477-8947.12239pmid: N/A
This study explores the impact of economic development on energy consumption and climate change using Malaysian data from 1977 to 2018. We employ five alternative indices—gross domestic product, financial development, industry value‐added, agricultural value‐added, and manufacturing value‐added—to assess economic development. Three alternative proxies (electricity, oil, and fossil fuel consumption) are employed to determine the energy consumption level. The climate change variable has been approximated through the level of CO2 emission and the average temperature for the country. Data has been analysed through three‐stage least square, vector autoregression, and innovative accounting approach. Results indicate that a higher level of economic development leads to higher energy consumption, which contributes to climate change. Moreover, the increase in urbanization and transportation also increases the level of carbon emissions. Forestation, on the other hand, plays a vital role in the improvement of environmental quality.
Fang, Qiu‐Shuang; Li, Hong‐Xun
doi: 10.1111/1477-8947.12234pmid: N/A
The management and protection of forest resources has become one of the major issues of environmental protection globally. As the largest developing country in the world, China has determined that the construction of an ecological civilization is an important piece of a millennium plan for China's sustainable development. The ecological capital theory, which adheres to the idea of a harmonious coexistence between man and nature, provides an opportunity to open up a new chapter for the construction of ecological civilization. Based on the fact China is a country endowed with unique resources, this paper aims to provide a theoretical reference on how to maximize the value of forest ecological resources and promote the sustainable development of global forest resources. To gain clear insights, this paper uses the theory of ecological capital to discuss how to demarcate the concept of the capitalization of forest ecological resources. The internal motivation of the capitalization of forest ecological resources was analysed from two perspectives: how to keep the balance between ecological protection and resource development, and how people have changed the way of using forest resources. This paper has expounded how forest ecological resources are transformed to forest ecological assets and then forest ecological capital, indicating the realization path of the capitalization of forest ecological resources, that is, a direct utilisation of forest resources and indirect new ways of forestry management. It aims to provide theoretical references for maximizing the value of forest ecological resources and achieving the sustainable development of global forest resources.
Usman, Ojonugwa; Alola, Andrew Adewale; Ike, George N.
doi: 10.1111/1477-8947.12242pmid: N/A
This study offers new insights into the relationship between energy consumption and environmental degradation in the United States by controlling for financial development, renewable energy innovations, economic expansion, and trade policy uncertainty over the period 1985:Q1 to 2014:Q4. Based on the flexible autoregressive distributed lag model, our findings show that energy consumption deteriorates the environment, while renewable energy innovations reduce CO2 emissions but has no significant effect on ecological footprint. Furthermore, the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis is valid only when ecological footprint is used as an environmental indicator. The causality results establish a feedback effect between CO2 emissions and renewable energy innovations, a unidirectional causal flow from financial development to CO2 emissions, energy consumption, and economic growth. Also discovered is a unidirectional causal flow from the ecological footprint to energy use and economic growth, and from renewable energy innovations and energy consumption to economic growth. Therefore, the policy implications for this study, among others, include the provision of grants and subsidies for research in renewable energy to enhance sustainable environmental quality.
Chen, Qiyong; Chen, Shiyu; Shi, Changfeng; Pang, Qinghua; Li, Ang
doi: 10.1111/1477-8947.12236pmid: N/A
The stable development of agriculture is of great significance to alleviate the problem of food insecurity. As a significant yield zone along the Belt and Road Initiative, the Black Sea area is an ideal object for China to invest in agriculture. Therefore, it is particularly important to evaluate the agricultural investment environment in this region reasonably and effectively. This paper selects the countries around the Black Sea as the research objects and uses an Entropy‐ technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) model to analyse the agricultural investment environment and its influencing factors. The results show that: (a) There are significant differences in the agricultural investment environment among the six countries around the Black Sea, ranking as follows: Russia(0.5583) > Bulgaria(0.4782) > Georgia(0.4072) > Ukraine(0.3539) > Turkey(0.3493) > Romania(0.3167); (b) in primary indexes, agricultural production conditions, political environment, and social development have a relatively large impact, among which agricultural production is the most important factor; (c) among the secondary indexes, human capital index and railway (total kilometres) have high levels of impact. Unemployment rate, inflation rate and employment in agriculture (% of total employment) also have a significant impact. On this basis, suggestions are put forward according to the research results.
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