<p>This study investigates the impacts of natural resources, financial development, and non-renewable energy consumption on the quality of the environment by including renewable energy consumption, globalization, and industrialization into the model for full sample countries over the 1985–2019 time spans. This study employs dynamic fixed effects (DFE), dynamic seemingly unrelated regressions (DSUR), and dynamic system generalized method of moments (DSGMM) approaches. The results of the study revealed that globalization and financial development `deteriorate the environmental quality by increasing CO₂ emissions. Similarly, non-renewable energy consumption and natural resource depletion also worsen the environmental quality while increasing the usage of renewable energy improves environmental quality due to emitting less CO₂ emissions. It is recommended that these countries' governments should focus on globalization. The government should create regulations that force business sectors to adopt more productive and effective technology. Furthermore, to reduce CO₂ emissions in full sample countries, energy efficiency could be achieved through adopting energy-saving initiatives, outsourcing energy infrastructure, foreign direct investment in the renewable energy sector, financial development to encourage green infrastructure, and energy production using renewable energy sources and energy conservation measures.</p> Graphical Abstract <p></p>