Assessing the impact of renewable energy and non-renewable energy use on carbon emissions: evidence from select developing and developed countries

Abstract

Renewable Energy (RE) is essential for balancing economic and environmental conditions to attain Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper investigates the relationship between carbon emissions (CO2) and RE use, considering Non-renewable Energy (NRE) and macroeconomic variables such as Foreign Direct Investment, Gross Domestic Product, and Trade in eight major polluting nations from 1990 to 2019, constrained by data idiosyncratic features. The Error Correction Model using Autoregressive Distributed Lag methodology reveals that RE effectively lowers carbon emissions on average, but high economic growth and NRE use significantly contribute to environmental degradation. Additionally, while a reduction in CO2 emissions with RE use is evident through panel data analysis using the random-effect model. However, country-wise and panel data analyses do not substantiate the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. The study confirms a long-run cointegrated relationship among the variables. It highlights the necessity for tailored energy innovations, as the weak validation of the overemphasized EKC hypothesis indicates that a generic solution is only sometimes applicable for mitigating emissions that facilitate the achievement of SDGs. This inquiry contributes to the extant literature by providing a nuanced understanding of the associations amongst macroeconomic variables, renewable and non-renewable energy consumption, and carbon emissions and offers critical insights for policy formulation. The requirement of indispensable energy innovations to achieve SDGs is emphasized. It is necessary to decrease the share of NRE use in total energy consumption and to increase the percentage share of RE use.