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Globally we are at a crossroad whereby energy production and consumption in themselves is partly blamed for climate change issues and global warming menace. The question that comes to heart is do we stop seeking energy production and consumption? of course no. Thus, there is a need for innovation on part of economies as they seek energy for sustainable development. This country-specific study focuses on South African, which reflects the above highlights menace in no small measure where her economic growth trajectory is plagued with high CO 2 emission. To this end, we explore the nexus between coal energy consumption, economic growth, renewable energy consumption and CO 2 emission between annual periods of 1980–2017. This study applied a battery of econometric techniques to underscore the relationship between the outlined variables. According to the ARDL bounds test to cointegration in conjunction with Kripfganz and Schneider (2018) critical approximation p-values both affirm long-run equilibrium relationship between study variables. Empirical evidence gives credence to the growth-induced pollution emission in South Africa as reported by the Autoregressive distributed lag Method, fully modified ordinary least squares and dynamic ordinary least squares as robustness test for soundness of analysis. This finding suggests that South Africa's economic growth trajectory is not clean. This preposition is resonated with the result of coal energy consumption also dampening environmental quality. Financial development shows strong statistical strength to improve the quality of the environment. These outcomes are indicative for policymakers as there is urgent need to energy transition from conventional energy based on fossil fuel (coal energy) to renewable energy mix which is more environmentally friendly should be pursued in South Africa. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emerging industrialized seven (E7) economies are not excluded from the global warming issues which is a major problem for most economies. The E7 member countries have partaken in policies to mitigate against global warming in terms of decoupling CO 2 emission from economic growth trajectory in the highlighted economies. It is on this premise that the present study is motivated to consider the connection among economic growth, pollutant emissions, coal rent while accounting for the role of other co-variates such as CO 2 damage and energy from a nuclear energy source, oil gas energy between 1990 and 2016 on an annual frequency. This study adopts the use of panel ordinary least squares alongside panel quantile regression to explore the coal rent-energy and environment nexus. The empirical result shows a positive and significant effect of both real GDP and coal rent on CO 2 emissions. More precisely, a 1% increase in GDP growth increases pollution emission by 0.400% while for coal rent, an increase in coal consumption dampens environmental quality by 0.088% as reported by the panel regression which is resonated by the quantile regression estimations at different tails of the data. Nevertheless, we observe that 0.95 percentile GDP growth strongly contributes to environmental pollution while at the median tail i.e. 0.5 percentile renewable energy consumption dampens the adverse effect of environmental degradation. Additionally, renewable energy, on the other hand, was found a negative and significant impact on CO 2 emissions in E7 countries as a 1% increase in renewable energy consumption improves environmental quality by 0.588% Moreover, the estimated results indicate that regulation of coal consumption through the rent in addition to the cost of carbon damage will further increase the CO 2 emissions in E7 countries. This study implies that putting stringent regulations on coal consumption as it concerns the increasing cost of carbon damage will not be of help to environmental sustainability within the E7 economies. The adoption of renewable energy consumption, nuclear energy, oil energy will reduce CO 2 emissions in E7 countries. Thus, suggesting a paradigm shift for low-carbon energy sources which are more environmentally friendly. [Display omitted] • We explore the nexus between renewables, nuclear, coal, oil, gas energy on CO 2 emission in E7. • Coal rent and renewable energy decreases CO 2 emission in E7 countries. • Energy diversification in the E7 countries can abate global dwindling energy market. • Environmental sustainability is obtained by decoupling CO 2 emission from economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]