Examining the Impact of Maritime Transportation Infrastructure Investment on European Port-Cities’ Environmental Degradation: A Scrutiny of the Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis

The present paper is aimed to explore the interplay between regional gross domestic product (GDP), seaport investment, maritime energy utilization, carbon dioxide (CO2M) emissions’ effect and port-city population, with respect to the maritime transportation sector. The investigation is focused on examining thirty-five European port-cities, observed over the period span ranging from 2005 to 2018, via the System Generalized Moments’ Method (S-GMM). In this context, the econometric critique of the Environmental Kuznets Curve, initially advanced by Stern (2004), has also been applied. The reached findings turned out to affirm the persistence of EKC, highlighting that economic development proved to correlate significantly with reduced environmental degradation at higher economic growth levels. The results also revealed that maritime energy consumption was discovered to contribute noticeably in intensifying CO2M emissions. Interestingly, however, investments in seaports appeared to demonstrate a negative effect on carbon emissions, suggesting that such investments play a crucial role in minimizing environmental hazard. Actually, it outlined that enhancements, innovations, or changes occurring in these investments would contribute in rather improved environmentally sustainable seaport operations.