Public Spending, Green Finance, and Zero Carbon for Sustainable Development: A Case of Top 10 Emitting Countries Feng Han 1 , Muhammad Umar Farooq 2 *, Muhammad Nadeem 3 and Malaika Noor 4 1 School of Finance, Department of International Finance, Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing, China, 2 Department of Business Studies, Namal University, Mianwali, Pakistan, 3 College of Economics and Management, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China, 4 Department of Management Sciences, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan In general, the public expenditure on schooling, science, and research and development (R&D) is thought to have a positive effect on the development and sustainability of an economy, but such evidence is lacking in the developing and developed countries, especially in the top 10 CO 2 -emitting countries. This study investigates the impact of public spending and green finance on environmental sustainability, using the ordinary least square method and data envelopment analysis, which uses the panel data from selected countries from 2008 to 2018. Results reveal a fluctuating green economic growth index, which was due to the non-serious existence of government policies. More precisely, a 1% increase in gross domestic product (GDP) growth increases the carbon emissions by about 0.40%, whereas the rise in coal consumption decreases environmental efficiency by about 0.88%. We also concluded that 0.95% GDP growth and economic development significantly enhance environmental emissions, whereas 0.5% of renewable energy consumption decreases the negative impact of environmental pollution. Furthermore, a 1% growth in renewable energy consumption improved environmental efficiency by 0.58%. Furthermore, the analysis demonstrates that the public expenditure on human capital and renewable energy (R&D) leads to a productive green economy through labor, and technically advance developmental practices, with varying consequences in distinctive countries. Keywords: green energy finance, public spending, top 10 CO 2 emitting countries, DEA, OLS 1 INTRODUCTION CO 2 emissions account for 70% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, making it a major economic and social concern (Zhang Y. et al., 2021). According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s 2013 report, the producing value-added ratio to large contaminant manufacturing is used to measure environmental protection levels (Yumei et al., 2021b). A thorough investigation of environmental efficiency was carried out by taking the above three manufacturing pollutant emissions and the specifics of each nations’ industrial production volume to verify the consistency of energy and economics (Iqbal et al., 2019b). The International Energy Agency (IEA) defines energy efficiency as the ability to provide additional services for Edited by: Qaiser Abbas, Ghazi University, Pakistan Reviewed by: Mohamed Elheddad, University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom Majed Alharthi, King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia *Correspondence: Muhammad Umar Farooq m.umar@namal.edu.pk Specialty section: This article was submitted to Environmental Economics and Management, a section of the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science Received: 13 December 2021 Accepted: 16 February 2022 Published: 26 April 2022 Citation: Han F, Farooq MU, Nadeem M and Noor M (2022) Public Spending, Green Finance, and Zero Carbon for Sustainable Development: A Case of Top 10 Emitting Countries. Front. Environ. Sci. 10:834195. doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2022.834195 Frontiers in Environmental Science | www.frontiersin.org April 2022 | Volume 10 | Article 834195 1 ORIGINAL RESEARCH published: 26 April 2022 doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2022.834195