Economic growth, foreign direct investment, trade openness, and CO₂ emissions in Vietnam: Evidence from the ARDL model

This study examines the relationships between economic growth, foreign direct investment (FDI), trade openness, and CO₂ emissions in Vietnam over the 1990 - 2024 period using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model. The estimation results indicate that economic growth is positively associated with CO₂ emissions in both the short and long run. Trade openness is negatively associated with emissions in the short run but becomes positively associated with CO₂ emissions in the long run, reflecting the different effects of technological improvement and economic scale. Meanwhile, FDI has no statistically significant long-run relationship with CO₂ emissions. These findings highlight the need to promote low-carbon growth, green trade, and higher-quality FDI in order to support Vietnam’s emission-reduction objectives.