Energy Consumption and Ecological Footprint in the World’s Major Suppliers of Crude Oil: Does Difference in Oil Production Status Between Sub-groups Count?

Abstract The need to maintain quality environment despite the increasing human activity and pressure on energy resources remains a topical issue in the field of Environmental Economics. However, we observe that the impact of energy consumption on ecological footprint in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has not received keen attention in the literature. This study thus delves into the nexus for the country group. For a more robust policy bearing, we partition the countries into Middle-East and non-Middle-East members because of their huge energy supply and consumption differences. Summarizing the results, energy consumption increases environmental degradation across all samples. However, despite the Middle-East countries being the highest per capita energy consumers, their energy consumption contributes less to environmental degradation compared to the non-Middle-East countries. For completeness, we report the long-run country-specific estimates and find that only in Congo is environmental quality enhanced by energy consumption.