The impact of economic growth and energy use is still controversial regarding sustainability, and researchers have limited consensus in this regard. Electricity is considered more environmentally friendly compared with direct fossil fuel consumption. However, many developed economies still depend on fossil fuel sources for electricity generation. Therefore, this study attempted to verify the relationship between electricity consumption and carbon emissions in developed economies in the Group of Twenty (G20). Economic growth and foreign direct investment are other important variables for analyzing this relationship. For this purpose, a dataset from 1995–2018 was generated. The study used econometric methods including cross-sectional dependence, cointegration, Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square Dynamic Ordinary Least Square estimators, and the Pair-wise panel Granger causality test to view the latest picture of the relationship between dependent and independent factors. Surprisingly, the outcome of electricity consumption showed a positive relationship with the growth of CO2. This indicates that electricity production is still dependent on sources that help increase CO2 emissions in G20 countries. Furthermore, the outcomes of gross domestic product and its square term confirm the notion of the Environmental Kuznets Curve for these economies. These results suggest that policymakers promote green and clean electricity sources for sustainable economic growth.
This research examines the effects of economic growth and energy consumption in the new developing economic block of Silk Road on carbon emissions (SERB). The energy consumption is further synthesized into renewable and non-renewable energy sources to distinguish their role in carbon emissions. This study considered panel data (1995-2014) of twenty-four middle-income countries along the Belt and Road initiative for empirical analysis. The fixed effect, random effect, and GMM methods were performed to confirm the cointegration relationship. Results highlighted the role of economic growth, renewable energy, and nonerasable energy on carbon emissions in the short and long run. Thus, it can be concluded that the newly emerging block resulting from Belt and Road initiative could get the maximum economic benefits of this project by using renewable energy sources. The new renewable energy projects may help increase clean energy and reduce carbon emissions in the emerging economic block due to the Belt and Road initiative.
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