The Impact of Air Transportation Infrastructure, Financial Development, Economic Growth, and Innovation on CO₂ Emissions from Transport in Saudi Arabia: A Quantile Regression

This study examines how Saudi Arabia's quickly growing aviation industry affects the environment by ex-amining the effects of key macroeconomic and structural factors, such as urbanization, financial develop-ment, economic growth, technological innovation, and air transport infrastructure, on CO2 emissions from the transportation sector. This study examines how these factors' influence on emissions vary at different levels of CO₂ emissions from transport using quantile regression techniques on annual data from 1990 to 2022. The findings demonstrate that urbanization and air transportation infrastructure have a reliably posi-tive and statistically significant impact on CO2 emissions across all quantiles. In contrast, financial devel-opment and economic expansion exhibit increasing marginal effects at higher quantiles, which is in line with the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). Technological innovation has a limited impact on reducing emissions at lower quantiles but becomes more effective at higher levels, according to measurements of patent activity. This suggests that the environmental benefits of innovation dissemination occur more slow-ly. These results highlight the necessity of emission-tiered policy actions since they have significant policy implications that align with Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030. In order to support the shift to carbon neutrality and sustainable mobility, This study specifically calls for improved systems for climate-aligned finance and integrated urban planning that targets green investments in aviation.