Building a greener environment: education levels and their links to CO ₂ reduction

Exploring the factors affecting CO2 emissions is important for governments and policymakers to control the increasing trend of CO2 emissions. Although many factors have been studied by researchers, education as a potential factor did not attract their attention. Thus, this study focuses on education levels as a new perspective to examine how education levels can contribute to CO2 emission reductions in the USA. Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model (ARDL) was conducted, using relevant factors, such as: Gross Domestic Product (GDP), total primary energy consumption (EC), elementary school enrolment ratio (EER), high school enrolment ratio (HER), and college enrolment ratio (CER). The results reveal that GDP and EC have positive and significant effects on CO2 emissions in the short- and long-run. The effects of the three education levels are significant and negative in the long-run, while in the short-run only the coefficient of CER is significant. This study confirms a significant link between education levels and CO2 emissions reduction in the long-run, and hopes to provide insight for governments and policymakers that investing on education levels, prioritizes the environmental awareness and leads to a more environmentally conscious society.