ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Energy Res.
Sec. Sustainable Energy Systems
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenrg.2025.1490841
Impact of Coal Consumption, Ecological Footprint on Economic Growth: New Evidence from Top Seventeen Coal Countries
Provisionally accepted
- 1Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, Kota Bharu, Kelantan Darul Naim, Malaysia
- 2University of Kashmir, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India
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This study investigates the relationship between coal consumption, ecological footprint, and economic growth in 17 coal-dependent nations between 1980 and 2022. Using Fully Modified OLS and Dynamic OLS estimators, the study finds significant positive relationships between coal consumption, ecological footprint and economic growth in developing and ecologically deficient countries. However, this empirical finding is insignificant in developed and ecologically surplus countries. We found empirical evidence that trade openness and domestic credit to the private sector also significantly enhance economic growth across all groups, including developed, developing, ecologically surplus countries, and ecologically deficient countries. Policy recommendations emphasize the need to prioritize the transition from conventional fossil fuel-based energy, particularly coal, to a more environmentally friendly renewable energy mix, encourage substantial incentives for renewable energy, the regulation of fossil fuel consumption, and foster public-private partnership in energy-efficient innovation ecosystem to balance economic growth, energy dependency, and environmental sustainability across economic and ecological contexts.
Keywords: ecological footprint, Coal consumption, economic growth, coal countries, ecological surplus countries, ecological deficit countries
Received: 03 Sep 2024; Accepted: 07 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Adeneye and Rasheed. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Shahida Rasheed, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, 190006, Jammu and Kashmir, India
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