Modern and traditional renewable energy sources and CO2 emissions in emerging countries

You, Vithyea; Kakinaka, Makoto

Modern and traditional renewable energy sources and CO2 emissions in emerging countries

2022

You, Vithyea | Kakinaka, Makoto

Sustainable development goals aim to promote the implementation of environmental and energy policies towards establishing a sustainable environment. Considering that energy demand has steadily increased in emerging countries along with their rapid economic growth, controlling CO₂ emissions in these countries is crucial to achieving global environmental sustainability. An important concern is that renewable energy is generally classified into traditional and modern sources, and their relationships with environmental degradation can differ at the macroeconomic level. This study examines the link of the two renewable energy sources to CO₂ emissions by employing an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model for 31 emerging countries from 1990 to 2016. This analysis provides clear evidence of heterogeneity of the effects between traditional and modern renewable energy sources. Although CO₂ emissions have negative associations with both traditional and modern renewable energy sources in the long-term, they are more sensitive to modern renewable energy sources than to traditional ones. These results suggest that modern renewable energy sources are an effective target for environmental and energy policies in emerging countries. Policy regulators and international communities should strengthen domestic and international schemes that facilitate the transfer of green technology, particularly, that related to modern renewable energy sources, from advanced countries to emerging countries.

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