ICT Adoption and Environmental Sustainability: Thresholds From the Lower and Lower-Middle-Income Countries

This paper aims to study the relationship between ICT readiness, use, and intensity, and environmental sustainability factors in the lower and middle lower-income countries from 2012-2018. ICT readiness, use, and intensity are measured with the impact of ICT on access to basic services, phone penetration, and internet penetration, while CO2 emissions per capita, fossil fuel energy consumption, and methane emissions are used as indicators for air pollution. To achieve this goal, the system two steps GMM estimation was performed which thresholds are computed contingent on the validity of tested hypotheses. The results demonstrate that increasing ICT readiness, use, and intensity in lower and lower-middle-income countries enhance environmental sustainability by decreasing CO2 emissions and energy consumption.