Despite the fact that there are several attempts in the literature of environmental economics to identify the key determinants of environmental degradation particularly CO₂ emissions, little attention has been given to institutional factors, especially the influence of freedom of press has not been scrutinized. This study therefore is undertaking to close the gap and examine the impact of freedom of the press on CO₂ emissions. The study draws data from 10 countries indexed as the most freedom of press countries from 1993‐ to 2016 due to the availability of data on freedom of press and examines it using the technique of pooled mean group (PMG) belonging to the panel autoregressive distributed lag model. The study further applies the second generation techniques of cross-sectional dependence test, Westerlund cointegration-ECM test to account for cross-sectional dependence of the panel. The main finding of the study indicates that freedom of the press has the capacity to reduce CO₂ emissions in most freedom of press countries. In addition, the result confirms the existence of an inverted U-shaped curve between CO₂ emissions and per capita GDP, validating the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis. Energy use and foreign direct investment as control variables contribute to rising CO₂ emissions in most freedom of press countries. In this regards, the study recommends that freedom of the press should be improved upon through the channel of institutional quality, symmetry, efficiency and reputation effects in order to reduce the incidence of CO₂ emissions.

尽管在环境经济学文献中多次尝试确定环境退化的关键决定因素，尤其是 CO ₂排放，但很少关注制度因素，尤其是新闻自由的影响尚未得到仔细审查。因此，本研究致力于缩小差距并检查新闻自由对 CO _{2 的影响}排放。该研究从 1993 年至 2016 年因新闻自由数据的可用性而被列为新闻自由度最高的 10 个国家的数据，并使用属于面板自回归分布滞后的汇总平均组 (PMG) 技术对其进行检查模型。该研究进一步应用了第二代横断面相关性检验技术，即 Westerlund 协整-ECM 检验来解释面板的横断面相关性。该研究的主要发现表明，在大多数新闻自由国家，新闻自由有能力减少 CO ₂排放。此外，结果证实了 CO ₂之间存在倒 U 形曲线。排放量和人均 GDP，验证了环境库兹涅茨曲线 (EKC) 假设。在大多数新闻自由国家，能源使用和外国直接投资作为控制变量导致 CO ₂排放量增加。对此，研究建议应通过制度质量、对称性、效率和声誉效应等渠道改善新闻自由，以减少CO ₂排放的发生率。