This study examines the impact of remittance inflows, technological innovations, and financial development on environmental quality in Brazil, India, China, and South Africa (BICS) economies over 1990-2016. This study employed a comprehensive environment proxy, i.e., ecological footprint for environmental quality, and also considers more advanced and robust econometric (second-generation) techniques. The outcomes of the current study reveal that remittance inflows and financial development significantly deteriorate the environmental quality, while technological innovations are an essential factor for the reduction of ecological footprint level. Furthermore, the results of the interaction terms show a significantly adverse effect on the ecological footprint. Additionally, the findings of country-wise analysis reveal that remittance inflows and financial development worsen the environmental quality in each sample country, while the technological innovations promote the environmental sustainability that is steady with panel results. Besides, the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis was verified across the BICS economies. Consistent with the key findings, an inverted U-shaped relationship exists between economic growth and ecological footprint in the case of Brazil and South Africa. In contrast, the U-shaped EKC hypothesis exists in the case of China and India. For robust policy implication, the findings of this study highlighted the dire need for "green policy tools" that should be linked with the BICS economy policies and driver for sustained growth.

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This paper studies the effects of income inequality and financial instability on CO2 emissions in the presence of fossil fuel energy, economic development, industrialization, and trade openness. Moreover, the present study is the first to examine the moderating role of financial instability between income inequality and CO2 emissions. We utilized panel data of forty-seven developing countries for the period 1980–2016 by utilizing the stochastic impacts by regression on population, affluence, and technology (STIRPAT) model. The empirical outcomes in all models indicate that income inequality and industrialization significantly reduce environmental degradation, while fossil fuel, trade openness, and economic growth decrease the quality of the environment. However, financial instability (with interaction term) shows no significant link to environmental quality, whereas (with interaction term) it shows a significant negative effect on CO2 emissions. In addition, the result of the interaction variable reveals that an increase in inequality, ceteris paribus, in combination with the rise in financial instability, is expected to increase pollution. Furthermore, there exists a bidirectional causal association among income inequality, financial instability, fossil fuel, trade openness, industrialization, economic growth, and the interaction variable with CO2 emissions.