Analyzing the impact of socio-economic factors on environmental degradation: Empirical insights from emerging economy

To support the achievement of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the purpose of this research is to examine the impact of population growth, poverty, and energy consumption on environmental degradation using Malthusian theory within the context of Pakistan. This research utilized the unit root test, co-integration, and the Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL to analyze the time series data from 1972 to 2023. The findings show that population growth, poverty, and excessive energy consumption accelerate environmental degradation as proxied by CO₂ emissions both in the short-run and long-run. This research suggests the policymakers to develop strategies that restrict overpopulation, control poverty growth, and unsustainable overconsumption of energy to reduce the environmental degradation, ecological collapse, and ultimately contribute to the SDGs. This article provides novel contribution by examining the cumulative influence of population growth, poverty rate, and energy consumption patterns on environmental degradation proxy by CO2 emissions for the first time from the lens of Malthus theory in Pakistani context. Moreover, this study contributes to the goals of poverty alleviation, energy consumption, and addressing environmental challenges as outlined by the SDGs.