The impact of renewable energy policies in carbon dioxide emissions was analysed for a panel of ten Latin American countries, for the period from 1991 to 2012. Panel autoregressive distributed lag methodology was used to decompose the total effect of renewable energy policies on carbon dioxide emissions in its short- and long-run components. There is evidence for the presence of cross-sectional dependence, confirming that Latin American countries share spatial patterns. Heteroskedasticity, contemporaneous correlation, and first-order autocorrelation cross-sectional dependence are also present. To cope with these phenomena, the robust dynamic Driscoll-Kraay estimator, with fixed effects, was used. It was confirmed that the primary energy consumption per capita, in both the short- and long-run, contributes to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions, and also that renewable energy policies in the long-run, and renewable electricity generation per capita both in the short- and long-run, help to mitigate per capita carbon dioxide emissions.

This analysis explored the effect of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) on greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) in a panel of twenty-nine countries from the European Union (EU) from 2010 to 2020. The method of moments quantile regression (MM-QR) was used, and the ordinary least squares with fixed effects (OLSfe) was used to verify the robustness of the results. The MM-QR support that in all three quantiles, economic growth causes a positive impact on GHGs. In the 50th and 75th quantiles, energy consumption causes a positive effect on GHGs. BEVs in the 25th, 50th, and 75th quantiles have a negative impact on GHGs. The OLSfe reveals that economic growth has a negative effect on GHGs, which contradicts the results from MM-QR. Energy consumption positively impacts GHGs. BEVs negatively impacts GHGs. Although the EU has supported a more sustainable transport system, accelerating the adoption of BEVs still requires effective political planning to achieve net-zero emissions. Thus, BEVs are an important technology to reduce GHGs to achieve the EU targets of decarbonising the energy sector. This research topic can open policy discussion between industry, government, and researchers, towards ensuring that BEVs provide a climate change mitigation pathway in the EU region.

The impact of renewable energy consumption on reducing the outdoor air pollution death rate, in nineteen Latin America & the Caribbean countries, from 1990 to 2016, using the econometric technique of Quantile Regression for Panel Data, was researched. Results show that economic growth, and fossil fuel consumption, are positively related to CO2 emissions, while renewable energy consumption bears a negative relationship with it. Furthermore, fossil fuel consumption has a positive impact on the mortality rate and economic growth a negative one. The negative effect of renewable energy consumption on the mortality rate is only observable on the right tail of its distribution. The modelisation reveals two ways in which the consumption of renewable energy can reduce the outdoor air pollution death rates: (i) directly, by increasing renewable energies; and (i) indirectly because the increase in the consumption of renewable energies implies a decrease in the consumption of energy from fossil fuels. The phenomenon of increasing urbanisation is a point where the action of public policymakers is decisive for the reduction of outdoor air pollution death rates. Here, the question is not to reduce the level of urbanisation but to act on the "quality" of urbanisation, to make cities healthier. The research concludes that public policymakers must focus on intensifying the transition from fossil to renewable energies and improving the quality of cities.

The causalities between carbon dioxide emissions, renewable and nonrenewable energy consumption, economic growth, and urbanisation were examined for the panel of five countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela) from Southern Common Market, over thirty-five years , using a panel vector autoregression. The empirical analysis pointed to the existence of bi-directional causality between the consumption of fossil fuels, economic growth, consumption of renewable energy, and carbon dioxide emissions; and a uni-directional relationship between the consumption of renewable energy and urbanisation. The research also proves that the countries from Southern Common Market are dependent on fossil fuels consumption and that urbanisation process is highly linked with the consumption of this type of energy. Additionally, it was found that these countries have low renewable energy participation in their energy mix. Nevertheless, a substitutability effect between the consumption of renewable energy and the consumption of fossil fuels, as a possible response to periods of scarcity in reservoirs, was detected. Policymakers of Southern Common Market countries should speed up the deep reforms regarding renewable energy to mitigate environmental degradation.

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The contribution of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) to mitigating/reducing fine particulate matter (PM2.5) emissions was researched through a panel of 29 European countries from 2010 to 2019, using the econometric technique of method of moments quantile regression (MM-QR). This research is innovative by connecting the increasing use of electric vehicles with PM2.5 emissions and using the MM-QR to explore this relationship. Two models were estimated to analyse their contribution to reducing PM2.5 in European countries. The nonlinearity of the models were confirmed. The statistical significance of the variables is strong for the upper quantiles (75th and 90th), resulting from the effectiveness of European policies to improve the environment. Electric vehicles (BEVs and PHEVs), economic growth, and urbanisation reduce the PM2.5 problem, but energy intensity and fossil fuel consumption aggravate it. This research sheds light on how policymakers and governments can design proposals to encourage electric vehicle use in European countries. To achieve the long-term climate neutral strategy by 2050, it is imperative to implement effective policies to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and promote the adoption of electric vehicles using renewable energy sources.

This article investigates the effect of the renewable energy transition on CO2 emissions of Latin American & Caribbean (LAC) countries in the period from 1990 to 2014. To this end, a panel autoregressive distributed lags (PARDL) model in the form of an unrestricted errorcorrection model (UECM) is estimated. The PARDL indicates that the ratio of renewable energy that is a proxy of the renewable energy transition in the short and long run has a negative impact on emissions of CO2 of -0.0675 and -0.0313 respectively. That is, the process of the energy transition can mitigate environmental degradation in LAC countries. Moreover, the empirical results also indicate that economic growth, trade openness and urbanisation contribute to the increase in CO2 emissions.

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