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The sustainable development of enterprises is based on three pillars: economic, social, and environmental. Sustainable development aims to limit climate change and its negative impact on the natural environment. The main aim of this paper is to assess the impact of selected energy economy factors (government expenditure, environmental taxes, outlays on renewable energy sources, prices of futures contracts for CO2 emissions, outlays on R&D, and the EU Emissions Trading System (ETSEU)) on the sustainable development of the energy sectors in Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, and Poland, from 2008 to 2022. We use the correlation coefficients, the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Vector Autoregressive (VAR) Models, and the simultaneous equation. The research results indicate a variation in the direction and strength of the influence of individual economic factors in the studied countries (p < 0.05). The results can support operational and strategic decisions sustaining the sustainable development of enterprises in the analyzed countries. The results indicate the need to reform selected economic factors, with an emphasis on the increased importance of environmental taxes and the reform of the EU ETS, which is a key tool for reducing greenhouse gas emissions cost-effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

10.3390/en14040884 2 Leitao N.C., Lorente D.B. The Linkage Between Economic Growth, Renewable Energy, Tourism, CO2 Emissions, and International Trade: The Evidence for the European Union. The authors of [[3]] report that clean, renewable energy produces little, if any, greenhouse gas emissions and provides a number of benefits to society associated with energy security, energy poverty, and environmental stewardship. The overall importance of behavioral changes within the energy/climate nexus indicates that the adoption of clean and renewable energy is a multi-faceted issue. While solar and wind energy are garnering the majority of attention for clean energy deployment, in [[3]] other forms of clean energy, including bioenergy, geothermal, hydro, and oceanic, are discussed. [Extracted from the article]

Almost all countries have committed to develop Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) to reduce GHG emissions. They determine the level of GHG mitigation that, as a nation, they will commit to reducing. Zimbabwe has ambitious and laudable GHG mitigation targets. Compared to a coal-based future, emissions will be reduced by 33% per capita by 2030. If historical climate conditions continue, it can do this at low or negative cost if suitable sources of climate financing are in place. The NDC plots a positive future. However, much of Zimbabwe's NDC mitigation center on hydropower generation and other measures that are dangerously vulnerable to climate change. Should the climate change in accordance with recent projections, these investments will be at risk, severely constraining electricity supply and causing high degrees of economic damage. This paper uses the Open-Source energy Modelling SYStem (OSeMOSYS) to consider two adaptation pathways that address this vulnerability. In the first, the country turns to a historically accessible option, namely the deployment of coal. In so doing, the electrical system is made more resilient, but emissions ramp up. The second pathway 'climate proofs' the power sector by boosting solar and wind capacity, using hydropower to provide balance for these new renewable resources, and introducing significant energy efficiency measures. This second pathway would require a set of extra accompanying investments and changes to the power market rules, but allows for both system resilience and NDC targets to be met. The paper shows that Zimbabwe's low emissions growth can be made resilient, and while this path promises strong benefits, it also requires strong commitment and political will. From this paper insights are drawn and requirements for future analysis are made. Two critical insights are that: (i) NDCs that focus on mitigation should include resilience in their design. If they do not, they can introduce deep vulnerability; (ii) a departure from historical electricity market structures appears to hold potential for strong environmental, cost and reliability gains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the many criticisms that Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs)—the bedrock of mitigation analysis—have received in recent years. Critics have asserted that there is a lack of transparency around model structures and input assumptions, a lack of credibility in those input assumptions that are made visible, an over-reliance on particular technologies and an inadequate representation of real-world policies and processes such as innovation and behaviour change. The paper then reviews the proposals and actions that follow from these criticisms, which fall into three broad categories: scrap the models and use other techniques to set out low-carbon futures; transform them by improving their representation of real-world processes and their transparency; and supplement them with other models and approaches. The article considers the implications of each proposal, through the particular lens of how it would explore the role of a key low-carbon technology—bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), to produce net negative emissions. The paper concludes that IAMs remain critically important in mitigation pathways analysis, because they can encompass a large number of technologies and policies in a consistent framework, but that they should increasingly be supplemented with other models and analytical approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Polish power system has been reducing its impact on the environment for a long time, mainly through modernization and investments in new generation capacities, including renewable energy technologies. However, its starting point is still more difficult compared to other less coal-dependent power systems in the European Union. The study was conducted in the direction of optimizing the Polish energy mix of electricity generation from the perspective of 2050. Two energy scenarios for the possible transformation of the Polish power system towards achieving at least a 95% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050 with an increasing share of renewables were analyzed. The study was carried out with the use of the TIMES-PL model, which minimizes the total system cost over the analyzed time horizon. The model was calibrated according to data from 2018. The two scenarios show relatively similar pathways for CO2 emission reductions by 2050. In the case of no investment in nuclear power plants, power plants equipped with CO2 capture and storage systems are an alternative solution for achieving climate neutrality and increasing national energy security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The generation from renewable sources has increased significantly worldwide, mainly driven by the need to reduce the global emissions of greenhouse gases, decelerate climate changes, and meet the environmental, social, and governance agenda (ESG). The main characteristics of variable renewable energy (VRE) are the stochastic nature, its seasonal aspects, spatial and time correlations, and the high variability in a short period, increasing the complexity of modeling, planning, operating, and the commercial aspects of the power systems. The research on the complementarity and dependence aspects of VREs is gaining importance, given the development of hybrid generation systems and an array of VREs generators spread over a large region, which could be compounded by different renewable sources, such as hydro, solar, and wind. This review is based on a systematic literature review, providing a comprehensive overview of studies that investigated applied methodologies and methods to address dependence and complementarity. It is a recent field of interest, as 60% of the articles were published in the last five years, a set of methods that have been employed to address this issue, from conventional statistics methods to artificial intelligence. The copulas technique appears as an important approach to modeling renewable energy interdependence. There is a gap in articles comparing the accuracy of the methods employed and the computational efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With economic growth and rising incomes, increasing consumption of fossil energy is leading to environmental pollution and climate change, which requires increased innovative inputs to promote the efficiency of renewable energy use. Considering the important impact of innovation input and climate change on renewable energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and green economic growth, this study uses simultaneous equation and sys-GMM model to explore the dynamic nexus of innovation input, climate change, and energy-environment-growth in OECD and non-OECD countries, with panel data covering 2000 to 2019. The empirical results show that renewable energy consumption in non-OECD countries significantly promoted green economic growth, while OECD countries did the opposite. Moreover, renewable energy consumption significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions caused by climate change, especially for OECD countries. When the level of economic growth exceeds a certain inflection point, greenhouse gas emissions begin to turn from positive to negative, which further verifies the EKC hypothesis. In addition, this study found that innovation input has significantly increased renewable energy consumption, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and promoted green economic growth in OECD countries. Finally, this study also found that the impact of innovation input in OECD and non-OECD countries on the energy-environment-growth nexus is greater in the short term and more significant in the medium and long term, while the impact of climate change on the energy-environment nexus in OECD and non-OECD countries is more significant in the medium and long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increase in the share of renewable energy in the power generation mix plays a pivotal role in the decarbonisation of power systems, thus facilitating the achievement of international and national targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and addressing climate change. Due to the intermittent nature of variable renewable energy, the integration of these sources in power systems requires investments in additional solutions and setting strategies to ensure grid stability and reliability. For that purpose, a prospective modelling was applied to the relatively isolated island named Procida, located in the gulf of Naples in Italy, through the bottom-up optimization model TIMES-Procida for a long-term energy plan where technical solutions, i.e., deployment of photovoltaics on rooftops and storage, and policy scenarios, i.e., energy efficiency, were used to analyse the evolution of the energy system. The introduction of renewable energy could be much more relevant when dealing with islands; they appear as decisive territories for experimentation and analysis of the transformation of all power systems. At year 2050, our results address decarbonisation and energy autonomy. They show that only with high shares of renewable energy will the territory see a noticeable decarbonisation of its economic sectors (up to 24%) and a decreasing dependency on imports (−16.6% compared to low renewable integration). By comparing the results of scenarios including or lacking storage solutions, we showcased how this reflected on the investments in PV and on grid congestion relief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change poses profound threats to the Earth and its people. Its mitigation, therefore, demands common but differentiated actions with comprehensive and coordinated approach. The global community has pledged to mitigate various greenhouse gases in some international soft law instruments. Exploitation of renewables to generate energy and produce electricity is simultaneously suggested for the last couple of decades as a viable alternative in mitigating climate change. This gets momentum with the adoption of the historical and universally ratified Paris Agreement in 2016 where energy is placed at the heart of the Agreement. Energy, where renewable energy is a branch, is generally regulated and governed domestically and so, international legal regime is still evolving in this regard. In the absence of any specific and direct international instrument on energy and renewable energy, published literatures have considered this topic from different directions ranging from climate change to the principle of national sovereignty, economic, trade and investment issues. In this backdrop, this paper aims to introduce various renewable sources, prospects and challenges in their promotion that may help to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change. Relevant international law provisions have been evaluated, performances of the relevant regional and international organizations active in this sector are highlighted and some of the disputes in this area considered in international forums are duly addressed. It is revealed that strong political will of the global community in fulfilling their commitments made so far in different international forums is the key to transforming the world into a better one for the future generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]