ABSTRACT Rising carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions in rapidly developing economies pose a major challenge to global climate objectives and the achievement of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Next Eleven (N‐11) nations, characterised by fast economic growth and heavy reliance on natural resources, are particularly vulnerable to this sustainability dilemma. This study investigates how key socioeconomic factors, economic growth, biocapacity, natural resource rents, government effectiveness, and technological innovation influence CO 2 emissions in the N‐11 region. The analysis is conducted within the framework of the SDGs, emphasising climate action and sustainable development. Due to data limitations, seven countries—Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, and the Philippines—are excluded from the biocapacity analysis. Employing advanced panel econometric techniques that account for slope heterogeneity and cross‐sectional dependence, the study applies unit root and cointegration tests, with Westerlund's method confirming long‐run relationships amongst variables. The Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) results show that technological innovation, government effectiveness, and biocapacity significantly reduce CO 2 emissions, whereas GDP growth has a weak positive correlation with ecological degradation, and natural resource rents show no significant linear impact. Further insights from the Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR) model indicate that governance and innovation exert stronger emission‐reducing effects at higher quantiles of the emissions distribution. Conversely, the environmental burden of economic growth and resource rents intensifies at these upper levels, highlighting the limitations of extractive economic strategies. The study underscores the importance of strengthening institutional quality, fostering technological development, and enhancing ecological resilience. It offers policy‐relevant evidence to support customised interventions aimed at achieving sustainability in high‐emission N‐11 countries.
Li et al. (Thu,) studied this question.