Does Education Improve Environmental Quality in Saudi Arabia?

Abstract

Since the adoption of the Paris Agreement (UNFCCC, 2015), education has indeed been recognized internationally as an essential tool for informing, raising awareness and engaging the public in the fight against climate change. The current study utilizes the ARDL model to investigate the nonlinear relationship between economic growth, education and carbon emissions for Saudi Arabia over the period 2017–2020. The results show that primary education has no effect on CO2 emissions while secondary and tertiary education have a negative effect on CO2 emissions. The results also confirm the non-linear and the inverted U-shaped relationship between both CO2 emissions and education (secondary and tertiary) and between CO2 emissions and economic growth. Our results are important in terms of economic policy. First, they highlight the importance of human capital in environmental protection. Second, the current accumulation of knowledge is certainly a factor of economic growth but also of pollution growth. It is not a question of recommending a reconsideration of education policies whose intrinsic values are obvious. On the contrary, there is a need to introduce a change in the perception and role of education in favor of the environment.

Keywords

• Environmental Kuznets Curve, CO2 emissions, Education, Economic growth, Saudi Arabia.