• Energy Research
• Closed Access close
• 8. Economic growth close
• 9. Industry and infrastructure close
• PK close
• HR close
• BG close

Abstract Hydrogen is considered a potential game changer for world energy systems and a solution to climate change concerns, as it generates zero waste and it is suited for power generation and transportation. Despite its several advantages, there are significant technical challenges in deploying a stable hydrogen economy including improving its process efficiencies, lowering production costs, maintaining cost-effective transmission and distribution, and exploiting inexpensive and sustainable feedstocks. In this context, a detailed study was conducted to analyze the production sources, technologies, storage and transport systems, and global potential exportable feedstocks to produce hydrogen. A comprehensive analysis of current hydrogen production technologies with their energy efficiencies and hydrogen selling prices was reported in this study. Various hydrogen production technologies with their capital investments and CO2 emissions were also presented. Potential feedstocks for hydrogen production were identified and analyzed through a product space model, which characterizes a network of global exportable products based on their similarities and productive knowledge. It was established that the hydrogen production feedstocks and sources currently used are primarily available in six countries: the United States of America, France, Russia, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Spain. Broadly, the results revealed that the United States of America and Russia shared the highest hydrogen feedstock exports, indicating a higher probability of hydrogen production in these countries. Except for Russia, all the studied countries fell in the most desired quadrant, indicating that they can move in all product space directions to exploit unexplored hydrogen feedstocks for better sustainable economic growth.

The upsurge in higher education is considered a key determinant for enhancing green growth. Moreover, ICT development is also the main catalyst of green growth. This research explores the role of higher education and ICT on green growth for China from 1995 to 2020. The study employs auto-regressive distributive lag (ARDL) approach for short-run and long-run estimates of green growth. The effect of higher education and ICT on green growth is significantly positive in the long run and short run. The outcomes of the empirical models reveal that financial inclusion is positively associated with green growth in both long run and short run. Moreover, renewable energy consumption is found to have a positive impact on green growth. The findings thus point to the need for policies that promote human capital and ICT infrastructure as a way of accelerating green growth.

The relationship between exchange rate volatility (ERV) and other macroeconomic factors, including trade flows, domestic production, inflation, money demand, and economic growth, has remained a topic of a large number of studies in international finance. However, the research question that the past empirics have overlooked is whether ERV has any role in helping an emerging economy like China in its journey toward a renewable energy transition. To answer this question, this analysis intends to scrutinize the nexus between ERV and renewable energy investment (REI) in China over 1991Q1-2021Q4. Moreover, due to the asymmetric behavior of ERV, we have based our analysis on the asymmetric assumption. For analyzing the short and long-run impacts of ERV on REI in China, we used the linear autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) and nonlinear ARDL methods. In the long term, the ARDL model predicts that stricter environmental policies and higher GDP will lead to more investment in renewable energy. As far as the nonlinear model is concerned, the long-term negative change in ERV does not affect REIs, whereas a long-term positive change in ERV reduces such investments. Likewise, unfavorable short-term exchange rate shocks encourage REI while positive short-term shocks discourage such development. Moreover, investment in renewable energy is bolstered by GDP, environmental policy strictness, and financial development, but is dampened by CO2 emissions in the short term in both models. On the basis of these results, we suggest that policymakers should consider implementing measures to stabilize exchange rates to promote investment in renewable energy.

In the light of The Paris Agreement (COP 21), global leaders reached a consensus to curtail the increase in global temperature up to 2.0 °C ideally 1.5 °C pre-industrial level. Likewise, it has become a pathway to accomplish long-term goals of achieving carbon neutrality. In this regard, this paper aims to explore the role of green process innovation and environmental orientation toward environmental performance for achieving the long-term goal of carbon neutrality. In addition, this paper also discovers a mediating role of green competitive advantage in said context. Using data from a survey among managers of equipment manufacturing sector, the study employed structural equation modeling technique and found that green process innovation, environmental orientation and green competitive advantage significantly influence environmental performance. Subsequently, mediation analysis indicated that green competitive advantage partially mediates the relation from green process innovation and environmental orientation to environmental performance. In light of the carbon neutrality targets, the study highlight that improving environmental performance through green process innovation and environmental orientation can be a way-forward for manufacturing sector to play its role to achieve carbon neutrality. The study concludes with theoretical and practical implications.

The present study investigates the effect of public–private partnership investment in energy and renewable energy consumption on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, taking into account the critical role of economic growth and trade openness in Pakistan from 1992 to 2019. The linear and nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag models are employed to check the co-integration link between dependent and independent variables, further estimate short-run and long-run associations, and examine the symmetric and asymmetric effects of public–private partnership investment in energy on CO2 emissions in Pakistan. The empirical findings show that public–private partnership investment in energy reduces environmental quality by increasing CO2 emissions. Similarly, economic development and trade openness harms the atmosphere by raising CO2 emissions. On the other hand, renewable energy consumption significantly negatively affects CO2 emissions. In addition, the findings also authenticate the asymmetric link between public–private partnership investment in energy and the environment, as CO2 emissions are caused mainly by positive shocks in public–private partnership investment in energy in the short and long run. This study proposes financing renewable energy projects through public–private partnership is needed for an environmentally friendly future.

The rapid growth of agriculture has led to a significant increase in energy utilization and CO2 emissions. Agriculture performs a pivotal role in improving every country’s economy. The current study has the main objective to analyses the long-run impact of agricultural CO2 discharge on economic growth, energy consumption (electricity utilization in the agriculture sector), financial development, foreign direct investment (FDI), and population for India. For the period 1978–2018, we applied ADF, PP, ERS, and KPSS unit root and Z&A and CMR structural interval tests to evaluate the stability and breaks in the data set. We check the cointegration of study variables through ARDL, Engle–Granger, and Johansen’s cointegration approaches. The findings of the long-run analysis showed a cointegration among the variables, which reveals that an escalation in economic growth and financial development refine the natural environment, while the upsurge in FDI and population further deteriorate the climate in India. However, agricultural sector electricity use shows an insignificant association with CO2 emissions for both periods. On the basis of results, we recommend that legislators should offer an environment that provides opportunities for financial development and economic growth.

© 2021 Elsevier LtdDespite extensive research to address the impact of environmental reforms under the Paris Climate Agreement, current literature has failed to provide sufficient insights into Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) countries. To this end, the current study attempts to address the impact of the economic complexity on environmental quality in the presence of renewable energy consumption, financial development, urbanization and energy innovation in RCEP countries from 1990 to 2019. Our empirical estimates confirm a significant association between environmental quality, economic complexity index, renewable energy consumption, financial development, urbanization and energy innovation in the short-run and long run. Based on extensive econometric analysis (CS-ARDL, AMG, PMG, FMOLS, and DOLS), we conclude that economic complexity, renewable energy, and energy innovation effectively mitigate environmental degradation. At the same time, financial development and urbanization have an adverse impact on the environment. These findings have extensive policy implications for policymakers and environmental stakeholders, who are aiming to achieve sustainable energy policy and economic growth to meet the environmental commitments under Paris Climate Agreement.

Environmental degradation has put significant consequences at both the national and global levels. Economic development and ecological sustainability can be achieved by an increase in economic growth but on the cost of environmental quality. The basic aim of this analysis is to find the existence of the aviation Kuznets curve (AKC) and the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) for the selected 21 OECD nations from 1980 to 2018. The aviation cargo and aviation passengers’ patterns are separately analyzed in relation to CO2 emissions to quantify whether Kuznets phenomenon exists in the aviation industry of OECD nations? The econometric results of panel GMM confirm the validation of the aviation Kuznets curve in case of aviation passengers such that the “inverted U shaped” pattern. While the environmental Kuznets curve and aviation cargo Kuznets curve do not exist in the OECD nation. It means that an increase in aviation cargo and economic growth increases the CO2 emissions showing the “U shaped” association. Moreover, the Pairwise Dumitrescu Hurlin panel causality test exhibits uni–directional association moving from economic growth to carbon emissions, while there is bidirectional granger causality among trade openness, aviation sector, and energy consumption to carbon emissions. The overall results suggest that OECD nations must consider the pollution reduction techniques, investment in renewable sources, continuous research, implementation of efficient energy sources, and the imposition of aviation emissions taxes to limit the pollution.

In the era of sustainable development, glass-fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) composites have made their way into modern engineering, construction, and building sectors due to their exponential characteristics. While considering the rapid growth and development in this sector, this research has assessed the relative environmental and techno-economic sustainability of two sorts of GFRP composite technologies: (a) filament winding and (b) pultrusion to effectively appraise their application, merits, and demerits. This study will help low-middle-income countries like Pakistan toward cleaner production, environmental management, and sustainable industrial development. The techno-economic sustainability is determined by using life cycle costing and techno-economic indicators, i.e., benefit-cost (B/C) ratio, net present value (NVP), internal rate of return (IRR), and payback period. The B/C ratio depicts the relationship between the relative cost and benefits of a technology, and NVP expresses the calculated present value of the future payback stream of a technological investment, while the IRR is an effective techno-economic indicators which can predict the efficacy of an investment, and the payback period is the time forecast for a technology to recover its investments. These techno-economic analytics showed that the net life-cycle cost performance, B/C ratio, and IRR are 5%, 7%, and 15% higher respectively for filament winding-based GFRP technology than the pultrusion-based manufacturing technology, whereas overall net life cycle benefits are about 80% greater for filament winding. Similarly, the payback time is shorter for filament winding compared to pultrusion. The environmental sustainability is determined, by employing a relative life cycle analysis (LCA) for both technologies. The system boundary for the study is "gate to gate," i.e., manufacturing phase, where these technologies are assessed for their environmental externalities. The functional unit of "1 kg finished product," i.e., manufactured by pultrusion and filament winding technology, and eight life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) categories; climate change potential (CCP), terrestrial eco-toxicity potential (TETP), ozone depletion potential (ODP), fossil resource depletion potential (FDP), acidification potential (AP), eutrophication potential (EP), particulate matter (PM) formation, and water consumption potential (WCP) have been selected. The significant ecological impact scores are determined in the categories of CCP (kg CO2 eq.) as 10.8E + 00 and 5.01E + 00 and ETP (kg. 2,4-D eq.) as 1.26E-02 and 9.47E-03 and FDP (kg Oil eq.) as 3.96E + 00 and 2.59E + 00 for filament winding and pultrusion-based GFRP technologies, respectively. These LCIA results depicted that the ecological performance of filament winding technology is specifically better than pultrusion technology in the categories of EP, PM, and WCP, while, for all other life cycle impact categories, the pultrusion technology has depicted significantly lower impact potential and is environmentally more sustainable. The outcomes of this research will be greatly assistive for researchers, developers, manufacturers, and policymakers to effectively appraise the externalities and selection of a more sustainable GFRP technology.