Dynamic linkages between green energy, knowledge spillover, and carbon emissions: Global evidence

Abstract

Covering 3168 annual observations of 132 countries for 1995-2018, the study investigated the role of knowledge spillover (KNOW), renewable energy (RE) demand, and food production (FP) in mitigation of CO2 emissions to achieve global environmental sustainability (ES) agenda. The study used ArellanoBond (A-R) differenced GMM estimator to handle endogeneity and serial correlation issues for robust inferences. The results confirmed the hump-shaped relationship between KNOW and CO2 emissions to support ‘Knowledge Kuznets curve (KKC)’ across countries. The results further reveal that FDI inflows and trade openness (TOP) both increases CO2 emissions that substantiate the ‘pollution haven hypothesis (PHH)’. The positive relationship between FP and CO2 emissions exhibits ‘food footprints (FFP)’ across countries. The negative relationship between RE demand and CO2 emissions imply that increased use of RE helps to reduce emissions, which is a positive sign to precede towards cleaner production technologies for achieving global ES agenda.