Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Environmental Science and Pollution Research https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-30372-4 RESEARCH ARTICLE The impact of technological innovation and fnancial development on environmental pollution in gulf cooperation council – A linear and nonlinear ARDL approach Abdullah Aloqab 1  · Wen Hu 1  · Mohammed Al‑Sharaf 2  · Abdo AL‑Barakani 3  · Wahib Elayah 1  · Shahid Munir 4 Received: 5 July 2023 / Accepted: 6 October 2023 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2023 Abstract Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are highly vulnerable to climate change, including rising sea levels, extreme weather, and other environmental and social issues. GCC countries showed remarkable economic growth and development. However, this growth and development put severe pressure on the environment, leading to the degradation of the Environ- ment. Therefore, it is essential to investigate essential factors of environmental degradation, such as technological innovation and fnancial development. However, per capita income and energy consumption are also crucial factors of environmental degradation. Henceforth, the study carried out panel data from 2001 to 2019 to examine the infuence of technological inno- vation, fnancial development, energy consumption, and per capita income on environmental degradation in GCC. After conducting necessary preliminary tests, the study employed a symmetric and asymmetric ARDL approach to quantify the numerical estimates. Both symmetric and asymmetric models show that technological innovation reduces environmental degradation, while energy consumption, per capita, and fnancial development expedite the ecological deterioration in GCC. The Wald tests demonstrate the asymmetric relationship between technological innovation, energy consumption, fnancial development, and environmental degradation. However, the study fails to fnd a signifcant asymmetric relationship between per capita and ecological degradation. The recommendations are added in the recommendation part of the paper. Keywords Environmental degradation · Technological innovation · Financial development · Symmetric; and asymmetric ARDL Introduction In recent decades, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) experienced substantial economic growth and industri- alization, resulting in a significant increase in energy consumption and environmental degradation, posing considerable environmental sustainability challenges (Shan et al. 2021). The report of British Petroleum on energy consumption discloses that primary energy con- sumption in GCC increased by 1.3% in 2019. The GCC countries, including Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, hold the bulk of natural resources, controlling almost 20% of global natural gas reserves (British Petroleum 2021). However, the enormous energy resources in the list of top green- house gas (GHG) emitting countries, with Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar being the most significant contributors (Luciani 2013). The GCC countries contribute to 2.4% of the global GHG emissions, more than the European Union (EU), and are expected to experience a significant increase in energy consumption due to rising incomes and demand for luxury goods (Zmami and Ben-Salha 2020). These countries depend heavily on fossil fuels for their industrial activities, accelerating environmental deteriora- tion (Kihombo et al. 2022). Although renewable energy sources account for only a minor portion of their energy Responsible Editor: Ilhan Ozturk * Shahid Munir shahidmunirshahid@gmail.com Abdullah Aloqab aloqab2020@hnu.edu.cn 1 School of Economics and Trade, Hunan University, Changsha, Hunan Province 410079, China 2 School of Business Administration, Hunan University, Changsha, China 3 School of Cross-Border Business, Chongqing College of International Business and Economics, Hechuan, Chongqing Municipality, China 4 Department of Economics, Government Postgraduate College Kohat KP, Kohat, Pakistan Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.