Strengthening Institutional Governance to Counteract Urban-Driven Carbon Emissions in Central Europe: Insights from Economies in the Black Triangle Industrial Zone
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54536/ajee.v5i2.8796Keywords:
Black Sea Basin, BlackTriangle, Central Europe, Institutional Governance, Panel Ardl/Pmg, Regulatory Quality, Urban-Driven EmissionsAbstract
Urban expansion and industrial concentration in Central Europe’s historic Black Triangle zone-encompassing Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic-continue to drive elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, posing significant challenges to regional climate goals and the downstream ecological stability of the Baltic and North Sea basins. Rapid employment-based urban migration expands built environments, alters land-use patterns, and intensifies energy demand across industrial corridors. This research empirically examines the dynamic long-run impacts of institutional governance, urban migration, and fossil energy consumption on CO2 emissions in three economies across the Black Triangle Industrial zone of Central Europe over the period 1998:Q4 to 2021:Q4. Utilizing the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimator within a Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) framework, the long-run empirical results reveal that: (i) strengthening institutional quality significantly abates CO2 emissions, whereas (ii) both fossil fuel consumption and urban migration exert a statistically significant positive effect on long-run carbon emissions. These insights underscore that robust institutional governance is essential to decoupling urban economic growth from environmental degradation. To achieve UN Agenda 2030 targets and mitigate transboundary environmental impacts-including marine resource degradation and eutrophication in connected Central and Northern European catchments-policy interventions must prioritize institutional capacity building, accelerated investments in renewable energy alternatives, and the deployment of smart, green technology-driven transport systems leveraging artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT).
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