Empirical Nexus between Pandemic Fear, Global Responses and Climate Change: A Global Perspective

This study reinforces the importance of empirically examining the nexus of global fear (GFI), global responses (GRI), and climate change (CE). For this purpose, a global fear index for pandemic fear, the global response index of the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker, and CO2 emissions proxy for climate change were used. To achieve the required objective, a global time-series dataset ranging from January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020 were employed by using a comprehensive conceptual framework including a stationarity test, ARDL bound co-integration test and pair-wise Granger causality test. We found that GFI exerts a significant positive influence on CE, whereas GRI exerts an adverse influence on CE in the long-run equilibrium with an adjustment speed of 99.2%. Moreover, CE and GRI have a significantly positive influence on GFI in the long-run with an adjustment speed of 73.6%. The results of Granger causality demonstrate a bi-directional causality between GRI and CE as well as a unidirectional causality between GRI and GFI. However, there is no Granger causality between GFI and CE.