CO2 emissions, fuel mix, final energy consumption and regulation of renewable energy sources in the EU-15

Abstract

Global warning has emerged as the most prominent problem of our times. As such reducing GHG emissions have become the centre of environmental policies across the globe. The EU wants to play a leading role to the direction of alleviating climate change and for that purpose has set targets to reduce GHG by 20% and raise the share of renewable energy to 20% by 2020. Regulation to promote RES is considered an important factor to achieve the target of reducing CO2 emissions. However, the link between CO2 emissions and regulation to promote RES use has drawn little attention to this point. The aim of this paper is to extend existing research on the link between CO2 emissions, fossil fuels and final energy consumption, by including Res regulation into the factors driving the evolution of CO2 emissions. We find that conditional upon fossil fuels consumption and final energy consumption, the effect of regulation to promote RES on CO2 emissions is negative and significant.