Citation: Bildirici, M.E.; Genç, S.Y.; Castanho, R.A. Environmental Pollution, Terrorism, and Mortality Rate in China, India, Russia, and Türkiye. Sustainability 2022, 14, 12649. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141912649 Received: 20 August 2022 Accepted: 28 September 2022 Published: 5 October 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). sustainability Article Environmental Pollution, Terrorism, and Mortality Rate in China, India, Russia, and Türkiye Melike E. Bildirici 1 , Sema Yılmaz Genç 1, * and Rui Alexandre Castanho 2 1 Faculty of Economics and Administrative Studies, Davutpa¸ sa Campus, Yıldız Technical University, Esenler, ˙ Istanbul 34220, Türkiye 2 Faculty of Applied Sciences, WSB University, 41-300 Dabrowa Górnicza, Poland * Correspondence: sygenc@yildiz.edu.tr Abstract: This paper tests the cointegration and causality between mortality rate, terrorism, economic growth, and environmental pollution in China, India, Russia, and Türkiye in the period from 1990 to 2021 by using the Fourier bootstrapping auto-regressive distributed lag (FBARDL) test and Granger causality with Fourier (FGC) test. The FBARDL test determined cointegration between the selected variables. The FGC test found the evidence of causality among the selected variables. For Russia, Türkiye, India, and China, we found evidence of unidirectional causality running from terrorism to environmental pollution. The evidence of one-way causality from economic growth to environmental pollution was determined for Türkiye and China, but, for India and Russia, we found one-way causality from environmental pollution to economic growth. We found unidirectional causality from terrorism to mortality rate for Türkiye and China. For Russia, we found evidence of none causality. In addition, we determined there was evidence of unidirectional causality from environmental pollution to morality rate. Keywords: Fourier bootstrapping auto-regressive distributed lag (FBARDL); Granger causality with Fourier; mortality rate; terrorism; economic growth; environmental pollution 1. Introduction The world is currently dealing with a variety of significant issues, including terrorism and environmental pollution, both of which have a significant effect on sustainable devel- opment. Along with terrorist attacks, which are a significant phenomenon facing the world today, environmental degradation as a major issue is increasing. The literature mainly studies the relationship between terrorism and economic growth. In the literature, it was accepted that by influencing the actions of consumers, producers, and investors, terrorism hinders the economic development and the economic growth of nations and causes a loss of physical and human capital. Moreover, as the number of terrorist attacks increases, political, social, economic, and environmental issues arise. Globalization has a significant impact on this process since it leads to religious, ethnic, economic, and ideological quarrels. Even while it is not the sole cause of violence or its primary trigger, the globalization process increases terrorism. (For a more in-depth explanation, see [1].) In addition, increasing terrorism causes environmental damages. Because terrorist conflicts, terrorist camps and bases, training exercises, and many more activities of terrorists consume huge amounts of fossil energy [2] and both fossil energy consumption and dangerous heavy metals are released by the weapons of terrorists and terrorists’ chemical weapons of mass devastation harm the environment. The effects of metal pollution on ecosystems were demonstrated by [2–5] to be a significant source of pollution. On the other hand, there are numerous indirect effects that remain longer than the direct effects because the environmental effects of chemical emissions and oil usage are long-lasting. Furthermore, these pollutants are affecting the entire world. In addition Sustainability 2022, 14, 12649. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141912649 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability