Research Information System
Journal of the Knowledge Economy, vol.16, no.4, pp.15101-15119, 2025 (SSCI, Scopus)
This paper investigates the possible channels of effect of military spending and related activities on global climate change utilizing a sample of 142-member countries of China’s Belt and Road Initiative over the period 2000–2015, conducting macro-level analysis. We use the STRIPAT model formulated by Dietz and Rosa (1994) and exploit the two-step generalized method of moments (GMM) technique to explore the effect. The results reveal that controlling for other determinants both military spending behavior of countries (relative to GDP) and military spending per capita contribute positively towards CO2 emissions. We also examined the possible non-linear association between military spending and CO2 emissions, but this is not validated. Moreover, we find support for the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis and the results remain robust for alternative specifications. Countries of the world should curb their military power and ambitions and redirect the resources to social and environmental needs if they are willing to avoid future adverse effects of global climate change, or at least the nations should boost the knowledge and innovations in the military sector to avoid heavy load on the environment.