This paper empirically investigates the effects of transport infrastructure on economic growth in Central and Eastern European Member States (C.E.M.S.) in the period 1995–2016. During the transition period in C.E.M.S., most investments were focused on the roads, while railways have been lagging for decades. The aim of this paper is to estimate the effects of transport infrastructure (road and rail) on economic growth while controlling with other variables such as population growth, gross fixed capital formation and trade openness. We use panel data analysis with three standard estimators: pooled ordinary least squares, fixed effects and random effects. The results show positive effects in case of all estimated variables, except the railway infrastructure where the effects seem to be negative. The results illustrate the long-standing problem of inefficient and outdated railway infrastructure. These results should be seen in a broader context, especially in the light of the ongoing desire to reduce CO₂ emissions that are to a large extent produced by road transport, while railway transport is more environmentally friendly. This paper supports the European Union’s guidelines for the need to invest in railway infrastructure to ensure effective transport in the long term, create competitive advantages, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thus simulate sustainable economic growth in C.E.M.S.

The European Union (EU) has adopted a new development strategy based on “green” growth and announced carbon neutrality by 2050. Still, the EU’s previous development path was mainly based on trade openness and globalization, with positive economic and negative climate impacts. The aim of this paper was to test the hypothesis of globalization-induced carbon emissions in order to evaluate a possible future development path. The Arellano–Bond estimator was employed for dynamic panel analysis in 26 EU countries over the period 2000–2018. A significant and positive relationship was found between economic globalization and passenger mobility and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, while environmental taxes can correct the negative climate effect. On the other hand, social and political dimensions of globalization reduce negative climate impacts. To achieve net zero emissions, the EU needs to continue its global climate leadership, extend the use of environmental taxes, and stimulate economic growth based on low-carbon technologies such as hydrogen, energy storage, and CCUS.

The paper provides an economic model for the assessment of hydrogen production at the site of an existing thermal power plant, which is then integrated into the existing gas grid. The model uses projections of electricity prices, natural gas prices, and CO₂ prices, as well as estimates of the cost of building a power-to-gas system for a 25-year period. The objective of this research is to calculate the yellow hydrogen production price for each lifetime year of the Power-to-gas system to evaluate yellow hydrogen competitiveness compared to the fossil alternatives. We test if an incentive scheme is needed to make this technology economically viable. The research also provides several sensitivity scenarios of electricity, natural gas, and CO₂ price changes. Our research results clearly prove that yellow hydrogen is not yet competitive with fossil alternatives and needs incentive mechanisms for the time being. At given natural gas and CO₂ prices, the incentive for hydrogen production needs to be 52.90 EUR/MWh in 2025 and 36.18 EUR/MWh in 2050. However, the role of hydrogen in the green transition could be very important as it provides ancillary services and balances energy sources in the power system.

This paper presents a new economic profitability model for a power-to-gas plant producing green hydrogen at the site of an existing wind power plant injected into the gas grid. The model is based on a 42 MW wind power plant, for which an optimal electrolyzer of 10 MW was calculated based on the 2500 equivalent full load hours per year and the projection of electricity prices. The model is calculated on an hourly level for all variables of the 25 years of the model. With the calculated breakeven electricity price of 74.23 EUR/MWh and the price of green hydrogen production of 99.44 EUR/MWh in 2045, the wind power plant would produce 22,410 MWh of green hydrogen from 31% of its total electricity production. Green hydrogen injected into the gas system would reduce the level of CO₂ emissions by 4482 tons. However, with the projected prices of natural gas and electricity, the wind power plant would cover only 20% of the income generated by the electricity delivered to the grid by producing green hydrogen. By calculating different scenarios in the model, the authors concluded that the introduction of a premium subsidy model is necessary to accelerate deployment of electrolyzers at the site of an existing wind power plant in order to increase the wind farm profitability.

The issue of globalisation-induced greenhouse gas emissions is an ongoing topic and a major challenge to the EU climate goals of achieving non-zero emissions by 2050. In the light of this ongoing debate on the globalisation–environment nexus, the paper examines the impact of economic globalisation on climate in EU countries over the period 2000–2019 and provide some new empirical evidence. After applying the panel cointegration analysis and the Granger causality test, the dynamic panel analysis is performed for 26 EU countries using the Arellano–Bond estimator. For the policy perspective, the analysed sample of countries is grouped into two subpanels according to their level of development—EU countries with above-average and below-average GDP per capita. After testing the effects of different dimensions of economic globalisation and environmental taxes on GHG emissions, the results revealed the following: (1) Trade globalisation is detrimental to the climate, as trade openness significantly increases emissions in both country groups. Financial globalisation has a weaker impact and increases emissions only in below-average countries, suggesting that FDI inflows could be important for the transfer of green technologies when a country reaches higher development level. (2) Passenger transport reduces GHG emissions in both groups of countries, while FDI are beneficiary for the climate in above-average countries. (3) Environmental taxes as a proxy for environmental policy show statistically significant results, but with different outcomes in the two groups; they have a negative impact on emissions in countries that are below the GDP p/c average, indicating the shortcomings of the tax system in addressing climate change. (4) The total energy consumption increases emissions in both country groups and, thus, harms the climate. Therefore, despite the current unfavourable circumstances, EU countries should continue to expand the green economy, increase energy consumption from renewables, and develop low-carbon technologies that do not depend on imported fossil fuels.

The paper examines the existence and the direction of causality between the oil consumption and the economic growth in small European countries over the period 1980–2007 for the developed countries and 1993-2007 for the transition countries. Our findings show that small European states can be divided into two groups. The first group is characterized by the causality running from real GDP to oil consumption and is composed of the most developed European countries and a number of transition countries. In the former case, the direction of causality is a consequence of a highly developed post-industrial society with a strong tertiary sector. In the case of transition economies the direction of causality can be related to deindustrialization process and transition depression that resulted in a sharp industrial decline and decreased industrial oil demand. The second group is characterized by the causality running from oil consumption to economic growth, in which case the state should employ additional resources in subsidizing oil prices and securing long term and stable oil sources for its economy. In such countries the reduction of oil consumption because of different reasons (external prices shocks, increased taxes on oil and its derivatives, restrictive ecological laws regarding CO₂ emission) could lead to a fall in economic growth.