Saudi Arabia's path to carbon neutrality: Analysis of the role of Hajj pilgrimage, energy consumption, and economic growth

Abstract

Saudi Arabia's religious sites stimulate economic growth and create green jobs through sustainable tourism. Tourism expansion may raise carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions due to energy use. Thus, this article examines 1970–2019 time series data to assess how Hajj pilgrims, energy consumption, and economic growth affect Saudi Arabia's CO₂ emissions. Unit root tests analyzed data stationarity, while the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) method investigated the variable nexus in the near and distant futures. A 1% boost in Hajj pilgrims and energy usage would raise CO₂ emissions by 0.02% and 0.91% in the near term and 0.03% and 1.02% in the long term. By redeploying money into big carbon abatement projects, a 1% economic expansion reduces CO₂ emissions by 0.04% in the near term and 0.05% in the long term. Multiple estimators, including the fully modified least squares (FMOLS), dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS), and canonical cointegrating regression (CCR), were utilized to test the robustness of ARDL results. Pairwise Granger causality study analyzed the components' causal relationship. This article proposes Saudi Arabian carbon neutrality and green pilgrimage policies.