Reinvestigate the significance of STRIPAT and extended STRIPAT: An inclusion of renewable energy and trade for gulf council countries

The rapid growth experienced by the Gulf Council countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) has placed significant strain on their ecological footprint due to extensive energy consumption. Consequently, it becomes necessary to examine the factors contributing to the high ecological footprint and explore potential solutions for its reduction. This study aims to analyze the key factors influencing the ecological footprint in the GCC countries from 1995 to 2020. Through an extensive review of existing literature, it is evident that economic growth, urbanization, and trade can disturb ecological balance, while environmental technology and renewable energy offer potential remedies for environmental challenges. Thus, these variables have been selected as independent factors for investigation. The results obtained from advanced panel techniques emphasize the significance of adopting environmental technologies and increasing the utilization of renewable energy sources in order to decrease the ecological footprint. Conversely, economic growth, urbanization, and trade are identified as crucial drivers of environmental degradation. Considering that the GCC countries heavily rely on oil and petroleum exports, as well as non-renewable energy sources for their economic activities, the positive relationship between economic growth and trade is to be expected. The results propose multifold recommendations: (i) providing incentives for renewable energy and (ii) prioritizing the implementation of clean technology over traditional technologies.