Renewable energy and technology adoption: Mitigating CO2 emissions through implementation strategies

Abstract

An increase in the combustion of fossil fuels as a means of generating energy has resulted in adverse ecological ramifications. Therefore, to achieve environmental sustainability goals, it is essential to focus on reducing carbon emissions by conserving natural resources and adopting low-carbon technologies. Renewable electricity generation, the advancement of environment-related technologies, and the widespread adoption of these technologies have the potential to reduce carbon emissions and drive the shift towards a more sustainable future. Nevertheless, the impact of these initiatives in the European Union (EU) on promoting these solutions and reducing emissions is still ambiguous. Therefore, this paper aims to explore how renewable electricity generation, development of environment-related technologies, and diffusion of environment-related technologies limit CO2 emission in 14 selected EU countries. To achieve this goal, our study span covered the period of 1990–2019 and employed Panel Vector Autoregressive (PVAR) based impulse function to capture responses to CO2. The empirical results reveal that CO2 is positively influenced by economic growth and electricity consumption. The empirical findings indicate that renewable electricity generation, development of environment-related technologies, and diffusion of environment-related technologies have negative impacts on CO2 levels, implying that they could mitigate CO2 levels in 14 EU countries. The above empirical findings suggest that EU countries should invest more in the R&D, diffusion, and implementation of climate-related technological advances in renewable energy generation. Policymakers should take action to develop market-based environmental regulatory measures, cut fossil fuel subsidies, and boost renewable energy and climate change advances. To attain environmental sustainability and lower carbon dioxide emissions, it is crucial to implement such policies.