Assessing the Impacts of CO2 Emissions, the Kyoto Protocol, and Technology on Clean Energy: How Human Capital and Economic Globalization are Contributing in G-20 Nations

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals and COP26 targets have made researching the factors influencing renewable energy (RE) more alluring and popular. One drawback is that a key limitation of current research is the lack of understanding of how technological advancement and climatic policy affect the RE is a drawback. Considering this, this work examines the effects of technology and the Kyoto Protocol (KYO), as well as several other control factors, on the RE by using the cross-sectional autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) on annual data for the G-18 countries from 2000 to 2019. The quantitative results corroborate the presence of a strong correlation between technological progress and the RE, with a 1% rise in technological progress leading to a 0.215% rise in the RE. When it comes to the RE, the KYO is also quite helpful. This might be because it is based on principles and policies that give priority to advanced and industrialized countries in their efforts to enhance ecological efficiency by increasing RE sources and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. The G-18 authorities may also start providing incentives to invest in green energy enterprises while applying several impediments (such as increased tax rates) on the companies employing conventional, polluting production processes. The report also considers the implications for other areas of policy.