• Energy Research

One major concern about foreign direct investment (FDI) is the potential negative environmental impact due to increased CO2 emissions. However, there is a possibility that FDI mitigates CO2 emissions through green innovation and creates a cleaner environment. In the existing literature, there is no significant empirical evidence on the linkage among FDI, green innovation and CO2 emissions in the context of BRICS countries. Hence, this study aims to analyze the impact of FDI and green innovation on the environmental quality of BRICS economies for 1990–2014. The study employed Augmented Mean Group (AMG) estimators for empirical data analysis. The study’s findings depict that foreign direct investment, energy use, and economic growth have a significant and positive impact on the CO2 emissions of BRICS economies. Moreover, green innovation has a significant inverse impact on CO2 emissions. The results show bidirectional causalities between CO2 emissions and green innovation, trade openness and CO2 emissions, energy use and CO2 emissions, and urbanization and CO2 emissions. Additionally, the findings reveal a one-way causality from CO2 emissions to GDP and CO2 emissions to urbanization. This study offers essential policy recommendations for the environmental sustainability of BRICS countries through green innovation.

The effectiveness of green finance in driving clean energy and environmental sustainability in the current era is receiving attention. Therefore, this study proposes an empirical framework highlighting the effects of green bonds (GB) on clean energy investment (CEI), clean energy investment efficiency (CEE) and environmental sustainability of 29 green bond issuing countries between 2014 and 2022. Using system and difference GMM approaches, this study finds that (i) green bond issuance drives clean energy investment. (ii) Green bonds sufficiently enhance the selected countries' environmental quality. These results supplement the promotion of green bonds in increasing the transfer of funds towards renewable energy projects by reducing reliance on fossil fuels. (iii) Using Driscoll & Kraay, Fully Modified-OLS, and changing the dependent variable, this study further supported the idea that green bonds effectively promote the CEE and environmental sustainability of the chosen countries. (iv) Similarly, this study conducted income heterogeneity, showing that green bonds improve high- and middle-income countries' CEI and environmental quality. (v) Finally, the results indicate that resource consumption escalates CO2 emissions by declining the CEI. Technological innovations increase CEI, whereas they do not mitigate CO2 emissions directly, hinting at the requirement for a comprehensive approach. Therefore, inclusive policies on green bond frameworks, robust incentives, and rigorous environmental criteria should be implemented to attract investment in clean energy development and ensure the environmental sustainability of the selected countries.

Abstract Renewable energy markets have recently emerged in countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Despite having abundant renewable energy resources, these countries contribute only a small share of global renewable energy investment. This study examines the nexus between governance, renewable energy investment, and trade openness for a sample of 51 BRI countries from 1996 to 2017. Specifically, the gravity model of trade is used to develop an instrumental variable for trade openness. The empirical findings reveal that political stability, the rule of law, regulatory quality, and corruption control are statistically significant factors that influence renewable energy investments in BRI countries. Moreover, this relationship seems to depend on the degree of trade openness. Our results are robust to various econometric specifications.

We utilize extended STIRPAT "(stochastic impact of regression on population, affluence, and technology)" model to explore the impact of technological innovations and natural resources in energy-growth-environment nexus for a panel of BRICS "(i.e., Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa)" economies over 1985-2014. Using Augmented Mean Group (AMG), and Fully Modified-Least Square (FM-LS) panel algorithms, the results indicate that technical innovations can reduce CO2 emissions and help to improve economic growth in BRICS countries. Furthermore, our estimates support energy push emissions and validate the existence of the traditional "environmental Kuznets curve (EKC)" for BRICS and partially across the countries. Moreover, the empirical results indicate one-way causality from income to CO2; a two-way causal relationship is operational between income and energy use and between energy use and CO2 emissions in BRICS and individual countries. The results suggest that policymakers may consider the role of innovations as a clean source of technology to achieve energy security and a sustainable environment.

The study's main purpose is to investigate the complex interaction between innovation, renewable energy consumption, and CO2 emissions (CO2e), under the Kuznets curve framework, for BRICS economies from 1980 to 2016. The empirical estimates drwan from the CCEMG technique highlighted the heterogeneous role of innovation. The results indicated that innovation activities have failed to disrupt CO2e in China, India, Russia, and South Africa, except for Brazil. Second, the data showed that renewable energy consumption has mitigated CO2e in the BRICS panel, Russia, India, and China, excluding South Africa. Third, the existence of the EKC hypothesis was confirmed in all the BRICS economies, excluding India and South Africa. Fourth, the causality estimations reflected a two-way causality between innovation and CO2e; innovation and GDP per capita; innovation and renewable energy consumption; and between CO2e and income, thereby confirming the acceptance of income-led emission hypothesis in for BRICS economies, and vice versa.