Energy renewability, economic growth, transportation and climate vulnerabilities: Policy insights

The current study examines the relationships among economic growth (GDP), energy renewability (RE), and climate vulnerability, focusing on GDP based on RE and transportation. System-generalized moments and panel quantile regression analysis were employed considering the methodological prospects. The data was collected from 22 Asian countries from 2008 to 2021. Further, this study segregated its countries into the World Bank income division and analyzed more deeply. For this purpose, the panels are divided into four groups, i.e. 22 Asian (overall group), high-income (HICs), upper-middle (UMICs), and low-middle-income countries (LMICs). This study examines whether the EKC pattern holds for GDP and climate resilience and how RE influences this relationship. The findings indicate that GDP contributes to increased climate vulnerability, whereas the combined effect of GDP and RE reduces climate vulnerability in most countries. When RE is introduced as a moderating factor, the relationship between GDP and climate vulnerabilities shifts from a U-shaped to an inverted U-shaped curve. These findings have significant policy implications for mitigating climate vulnerability and indicate that regulating RE can support sustainable RE and increase climate resilience.