Can undergoing renewable energy transition assist the BRICS countries in achieving environmental sustainability?

The BRICS countries ratified the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals agenda whereby ensuring environmental sustainability is of paramount importance for these emerging market economies. Although the BRICS nations have recorded noteworthy economic growth trajectories over the last couple of decades, these nations have not fared well in terms of improving their environmental indicators, especially due to gradually becoming more fossil fuel dependent over time. Hence, this study aims to explore whether undergoing the renewable energy transition can directly and indirectly establish environmental sustainability in the BRICS countries by containing their annual growth rates of carbon dioxide emissions. Additionally, the emission growth rate-influencing effects of technological innovation, foreign direct investment receipts, urbanization, and institutional quality are also evaluated. Based on data spanning from 1996 to 2021 and considering the result obtained using advanced panel data estimators, the findings endorse that the yearly carbon emission growth rates are (a) unaffected by undergoing the renewable energy transition on its own; (b) positively impacted by technological innovation, net receipts of foreign direct investment, and urbanization; and (c) negatively impacted by improving institutional quality through effective controlling of the spread of corruption. More importantly, the results verify the joint carbon emission growth rate-mitigating impact of renewable energy transition and institutional quality improvement. Hence, for abating the emission growth rate figures, several policies are prescribed.

An empirical examination of the environmental sustainability-influencing mechanisms of renewable energy: contextual evidence from Next Eleven countries.

Recognizing the environmental development-related commitments made by the Next Eleven countries at 26th Conference of Parties (COP26), this study scrutinizes the repercussions accompanying good democratic governance, renewable energy transition, economic growth, and the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on carbon emission figures of these emerging nations. In this regard, the period of analysis considered spans from 1990 to 2018 while the econometric analyses involve application of both parametric and non-parametric panel data estimators. Among the key findings, firstly, the outcomes from the parametric estimation methods verify that establishing better democratic governance and undergoing renewable energy transition, both independently and jointly, curb carbon emission levels, while higher economic growth and the signing of the Kyoto Protocol are responsible for boosting emissions the Next Eleven countries. Secondly, the findings derived using the non-parametric methods reveal a great deal of heterogeneity when compared with the results obtained from the parametric analysis. Notably, better democratic governance is seen to reduce carbon emissions in less and moderately polluted. Next Eleven nations, while renewable energy transition curbs emissions only in the moderately and highly polluted ones. Additionally, these variables jointly inhibit emissions only in the Next Eleven nations that are moderately polluted. Besides, better democratic governance is observed to mediate the renewable energy transition-carbon emissions nexus only for the less-polluted Next Eleven nations, while the environmental impacts of economic growth and the signing of the Kyoto Protocol vary across different emission quantiles. Accordingly, relevant policies are recommended for helping the Next Eleven countries to comply with their pledges made at the COP26.

Does higher energy efficiency growth homogeneously affect carbon emission growth rate across developing Sub-Saharan African nations? The importance of utilizing clean energy.

Establishing a sustainable environment and acquiring a carbon-neutral status require Sub-Saharan African nations to reduce their year-on-year growth rates of carbon emission levels. Thus, this study considers a sample of 38 countries from this region and selects the time period from 2000 to 2020 for analyzing the annual carbon emission growth rate influencing impacts of energy efficiency, clean energy, institutional quality, international trade, and net receipts of foreign direct investment. Overall, for the full sample of Sub-Saharan African nations, the results verify that the enhancing the growth rate of energy efficiency improvement reduces both total and per capita annual carbon emission growth rates. Besides, the results endorse that enhancing renewable energy shares of the final energy consumption profiles and promoting good governance-led betterment of institutional quality also plunge emission growth rates in the long run. More importantly, energy efficiency improvement, renewable energy consumption, and better quality institutions are observed to jointly exert carbon emission growth rate-impeding effects, as well. By contrast, more openness to international trade is not seen to influence the carbon emission growth rates of the Sub-Saharan African nations of concern. Lastly, a greater share of net foreign direct investment receipts in the national output level is evidenced to boost annual carbon emission growth rates across this region; consequently, the pollution haven hypothesis is verified. Furthermore, these above-mentioned findings are found to be heterogeneous across groups of low-income and middle-income Sub-Saharan African nations. Accordingly, in line with the findings, a couple of policies are recommended to the governments of the Sub-Saharan African countries in order to guide them in designing effective environmental sustainability policies that are relevant for tackling climate change-related atrocities in the future.

Analyzing the influence of total petroleum stocks and entitlement programs on sustainable development policy formulation in the United States.

Numerous nations' policies have integrated the imperative of restraining the expansion of CO2 emissions, recognizing the increasingly dire and unmanageable consequences it entails. Despite empirical literature identifying diverse drivers of CO2, the impact of national security, healthcare, entitlement programs, and total petroleum stocks has largely been overlooked. Thus, this study aims to bridge this gap by investigating, for the first time, the role of these economic variables in determining whether they contribute to CO2 reduction or escalation in the United States. To evaluate the interconnections among these variables, this study utilizes monthly data spanning from 1985 to 2022. Employing contemporary quantile approaches like Recursive CQ correlations, Cross-Quantilogram, and nonparametric quantile causality, the study effectively accommodates the nonlinear nature of the variables. These analytical techniques offer a comprehensive assessment of the relationships among the variables under scrutiny. The outcomes of the Cross-Quantilogram analysis reveal that health care, national security, and entitlement programs enhance ecological quality at different quantiles. Conversely, total petroleum stocks are associated with ecological deterioration. Based on these results, the study recommends a focus on raising awareness regarding sustainable procurement strategies, embracing environmentally friendly technologies, and improving energy efficiency in healthcare facilities.

Can financial globalization and good governance help turning emerging economies carbon neutral? Evidence from members of the BRICS-T.

Since turning carbon neutral is regarded as a major macroeconomic agenda worldwide, this study examines whether financial globalization and good governance can help Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and Turkey in achieving carbon neutrality. Considering the period of analysis from 2000 to 2020 and utilizing robust econometric methods, it is observed that the environmental consequences vary across different components of financial globalization. In particular, the results validate the pollution haven hypothesis by confirming the carbon emission-boosting effect of de facto financial globalization indicators. In contrast, the pollution halo effect hypothesis is verified by the finding of the carbon emission-abating effect of de jure financial globalization indicators. Besides, promoting good governance is evidenced to impose carbon emission-mitigating impact in the long-run. The findings also authenticate the existence of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis for the emerging countries of concern. Finally, for both the short and long runs, it is found that the non-renewable to renewable energy transition contributes to lower discharges of carbon dioxide, while urbanization results in the amplification of the carbon emission figures. Considering these critically important findings, it is necessary for these countries to impose restrictions on the influx of unclean foreign direct investment, facilitate and ease the investment process for foreign investors for investing in environment-friendly projects, promote good governance, and adopt green economic growth and sustainable urbanization policies by developing their respective renewable energy sectors.

Roadmap for carbon neutrality: the mediating role of clean energy development-related investments.

Recently, the Japanese government has announced the national objective of turning the economy of Japan carbon-neutral by 2050. This declaration has therefore enhanced the imperativeness of replacing the use of unclean energy with cleaner alternatives so that the carbon-neutrality agenda can be attained in due course. Against this backdrop, this study aims to assess whether enhancing government investments in research and development for developing clean energy can help Japan curb its carbon dioxide emission figures. In addition, the analysis also controls for the environmental effects of clean electricity output, economic growth, international trade, financial globalization, and urbanization on Japan's carbon dioxide emission figures. The cointegration test results confirm long-run relationships between all these variables. Besides, the regression results showed that scaling-up research and development-related investments for clean energy development reduces carbon dioxide emissions only in the long run. Similar emission-inhibiting impacts are also evidenced to be associated with greater output of clean energy-fired electricity. Moreover, it is also observed that higher clean energy development-related investments play a mediating role in amplifying the carbon dioxide emission-reducing effects of clean electricity generation in the long run. In addition, economic growth is seen to dampen environmental quality by triggering higher emissions of carbon dioxide both in the short and long run. Simultaneously, enhancing openness to international trade and greater urbanization is found to boost the carbon dioxide emission figures of Japan. However, an influx of foreign direct investments is not observed to influence carbon dioxide emissions in Japan, neither in the short run nor in the long run. Accordingly, concerning the achievement of carbon neutrality goal by 2050, these findings emphasize the importance of boosting clean energy development-related investments, increasing clean electricity output, greening economic activities, reducing the trade of unclean commodities, adopting environmentally sustainable urbanization policies, and facilitating the influx of clean foreign direct investments within the Japanese economy.