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CO2 emissions, renewable energy, and environmental regulations in the EU countries
- Source :
- Environmental Science and Pollution Research. 27:33615-33635
- Publication Year :
- 2019
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2019.
-
Abstract
- This paper analyzes the factors explaining the slight decrease of CO2 emissions in the European Union (EU), recorded during the last period. With a focus on 12 EU countries, we apply a panel data analysis over the period 1990 to 2017 and we investigate the impact of renewable energy share in energy production, and the role of EU environmental regulations, in explaining the level of CO2 emissions. Our static and dynamic panel data analysis points to a negative impact of an increased renewable energy share on CO2 emissions, while there is no clear evidence about the role of environmental regulations. It appears that the 2020 climate and energy package contributed to the reduction of pollution level, while the ratification of the Kyoto protocol by the EU countries had no significant influence. At the same time, our findings validate the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis and the pollution halo (PH) hypothesis, showing that foreign companies export eco-friendly technologies. Our results prove to be robust regarding the use of static fixed and random effects models, of two-stage least square models and the use of difference and system generalized method of moments (GMM) frameworks.
- Subjects :
- Pollution
Natural resource economics
business.industry
Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
media_common.quotation_subject
General Medicine
010501 environmental sciences
01 natural sciences
Renewable energy
Kuznets curve
Economics
Environmental Chemistry
media_common.cataloged_instance
Kyoto Protocol
European union
Ratification
business
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Panel data
media_common
Generalized method of moments
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 16147499 and 09441344
- Volume :
- 27
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Environmental Science and Pollution Research
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........d6df4bebb52921341f15a6a33d952014