Several empirical studies have explored the influence of financial development on energy consumption; however, the impact of financial development, economic growth, and FDI on renewable energy consumption (REC) has not been studied in the case of the UAE. For this purpose, the long and short-run interactions among economic growth, FDI, financial development, and renewable energy consumption are explored by applying the new technique of bootstrap autoregressive distributed lag, along with Granger causality analysis, in the context of the UAE for the period from 1989–2019. Using estimation techniques, the study reveals the main findings and implications for policymakers in the UAE. The present research provides significant empirical evidence that financial development, FDI, and economic growth can significantly increase renewable energy consumption in the UAE. Therefore, it is essential to promote financial development in the UAE in order to avert the financial risks that undermine the stability of the financial markets and that negatively affect the REC. Furthermore, policymakers in the UAE should promote the concept of green finance and should provide more funds for investments in green energy for sustainable energy development in the UAE.

The motivation for this research stems from the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), specifically SDGs 7, 11, 12, and 13, which focus on the mitigation of climate change and sustainable economic development. This study examined the impact of renewable energy use, institutional quality, and production expansion on consumption-based carbon dioxide (CCO₂) emissions in BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) from 1996 to 2020. To achieve this, we applied advanced econometric techniques, including second-generation cointegration and unit root tests, along with the novel panel method of moments quantile regression (MMQR). The Westerlund cointegration test confirmed the presence of a long-run co-movement among renewable energy usage, economic growth, institutional quality, and environmental quality, suggesting a stable equilibrium relationship between these variables. The results from MMQR reveal that GDP has a positive and statistically significant effect on CCO₂ emissions across all quantiles, indicating that economic expansion contributes to environmental degradation. In contrast, renewable energy consumption and institutional quality show negative and significant impacts on CCO₂ emissions, indicating their mitigating effect on environmental deterioration. As a robustness check, the findings from fixed-effect OLS (FE-OLS), generalized method of moments (GMM), and common correlated effects mean group (CCEMG) estimations broadly confirm the results of MMQR. These findings underscore the importance of renewable energy consumption and strong institutional frameworks in promoting environmental sustainability.