Nexus between natural resource depletion and rent and COP26 commitments: Empirical evidence from Vietnam

Abstract

The goal of Vietnam to achieve certain emission level by 2030 is quite challenging even though the country is fully aware of the threats posed by climate complexities. In this regard, natural resources are influencing ingredients of eco-system and play a major role in environmental degradation. As reduction of methane and carbon emissions along with other GHG emissions were of the main concern of CO26 conference. Thereby, it is essential to get the fresh insights regarding the role of natural resources depletion and rent on methane emissions in Vietnamese context. By employing treadmill production theory, the present article hypothesized environmental quality deteriorates when economic activities increases and natural resources are highly exploited. Secondary data was extracted from WDI covering the time span of 1986–2020. Bayesian Auto-regressive Distributed Lags (BARDL) technique was used to test the hypothesis. From findings, it is revealed that all the chosen variable are positively associated with methane emissions, hence supporting the theory, however, the results contradict with certain studies who claims that the variables especially natural resource depletion and natural resource rent are helpful in reducing methane emissions. In the light of extracted evidences, the authors suggestions some implication that are to be helpful for country to achieve COP26 targets.