Emerging Asia’s move towards a net-zero path: The interplay of environmental threats, energy systems innovation, and vulnerability

IF 14.2 2区经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS

Energy Economics Pub Date : 2025-08-26 DOI:10.1016/j.eneco.2025.108864

Constantin Gurdgiev , Kazi Sohag , Md. Monirul Islam

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Abstract

Despite their reliance on fossil fuels, emerging Asia has committed to the Paris Agreement, aiming for environmental stewardship through renewable energy innovations outlined in their nationally determined contributions (NDCs). Motivated by this commitment, we investigate the impact of renewable energy innovation, investment, and energy systems vulnerability on GHG emissions (CO₂, CH₄, N₂O), while accounting for the effect of economic growth and regulatory policies on these determinants of transition to net zero. Analysing data from 2000 to 2022 using a long-difference regression method, we find a counterintuitive response of GHG emissions to renewable energy innovation and investment. CO₂ emissions exhibit an inverted U-shaped response to innovation and energy vulnerability. Overall, scale effects do not necessarily reduce emissions, and energy mix composition factors can lead to rebound effects. Thus, our evidence indicates that in the emerging Asia, current technology and institutional frameworks focus more on economic growth than on mitigating environmental impacts. Our structural breaks analysis confirms these findings. Therefore, we suggest the need for robust institutional mechanisms to promote clean energy innovation and address environmental challenges on the path to net-zero emissions.

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新兴亚洲走向净零道路：环境威胁、能源系统创新和脆弱性的相互作用

尽管新兴亚洲国家依赖化石燃料，但它们已承诺遵守《巴黎协定》，旨在通过国家自主贡献（NDCs）中概述的可再生能源创新来实现环境管理。在这一承诺的推动下，我们研究了可再生能源创新、投资和能源系统脆弱性对温室气体排放（CO2、CH4、N2O）的影响，同时考虑了经济增长和监管政策对这些向净零排放过渡的决定因素的影响。利用长差回归方法分析2000年至2022年的数据，我们发现温室气体排放对可再生能源创新和投资的响应是违反直觉的。二氧化碳排放对创新和能源脆弱性呈倒u型响应。总体而言，规模效应并不一定会减少排放，能源结构构成因素可能导致反弹效应。因此，我们的证据表明，在新兴的亚洲，目前的技术和制度框架更多地关注经济增长，而不是减轻环境影响。我们的结构断裂分析证实了这些发现。因此，我们建议有必要建立健全的体制机制，以促进清洁能源创新，并在实现净零排放的道路上应对环境挑战。

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来源期刊

Energy Economics ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

18.60

自引率

12.50%

发文量

524

期刊介绍： Energy Economics is a field journal that focuses on energy economics and energy finance. It covers various themes including the exploitation, conversion, and use of energy, markets for energy commodities and derivatives, regulation and taxation, forecasting, environment and climate, international trade, development, and monetary policy. The journal welcomes contributions that utilize diverse methods such as experiments, surveys, econometrics, decomposition, simulation models, equilibrium models, optimization models, and analytical models. It publishes a combination of papers employing different methods to explore a wide range of topics. The journal's replication policy encourages the submission of replication studies, wherein researchers reproduce and extend the key results of original studies while explaining any differences. Energy Economics is indexed and abstracted in several databases including Environmental Abstracts, Fuel and Energy Abstracts, Social Sciences Citation Index, GEOBASE, Social & Behavioral Sciences, Journal of Economic Literature, INSPEC, and more.