Abstract
Background: In achieving the goal of sustainable development (Goal 13), United Nations has related global warming to greenhouse gas emissions in recent years. Emissions of carbon dioxide, are known to be the biggest contributor to global warming. Hence this study disaggregates energy consumption that is Nuclear energy, renewable energy and fossil fuel consumption and investigates their impact on CO2 emissions along the Belt and Road Initiative. Methods: This paper determined the cross-sectional dependency and utilized second generation panel unit root test for precise estimation. Westerlund cointegration test was used to determine the long-run equilibrium relationship among the variables. Lastly the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimation approach was applied to investigate the long and short run output elasticities between the variables. Results: The results indicates that; for energy importers, CO2 emissions has a significant positive correlation with Fossil fuel and nuclear energy, while renewable energy has a significant negative correlation with CO2 emissions. For energy exporting countries, a significant positive two-way relationship amidst Fossil fuel and CO2 emissions, and a significant negative one-way causal relationship from nuclear energy and renewable energy unto CO2 emissions. Conclusion: The results clearly show that in all panel grouping renewable energy contribute negatively on CO2 emissions, thus more implant of renewable system is need along the belt and road initiative. These recent methodologies employed and findings revealed that in a pollution reduction tender, causal affiliations are affected in a tender to reduce emissions along with long and short-term estimated effects among employed variables by the energy groupings of Belt and Road countries.
Biodiversity risks and safeguards of China’s hydropower investments in Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Countries
