THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ENVIRONMENTAL TAXES AND ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN TÜRKIYE: AN ANALYSIS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE EKC HYPOTHESIS

Growing concerns over climate change and environmental degradation have brought public policy instruments to the forefront of efforts toward achieving sustainable development. This research explores the influence of environmental taxation and renewable energy on Türkiye’s ecological footprint within the framework of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis, employing annual data covering the years 1994–2023. The analysis adopts the Augmented ARDL approach to examine long-term dynamics. The results confirm the validity of the EKC hypothesis for Türkiye, revealing that environmental taxes contribute to a decline in the ecological footprint, whereas the role of renewable energy is statistically insignificant. Additional robustness analyses conducted with alternative estimators—FMOLS, DOLS, and CCR—produce consistent outcomes. These findings highlight the significance of environmental fiscal measures in advancing ecological sustainability and suggest that environmental taxes can function as an effective policy tool for reducing environmental pressures in Türkiye.