This research explores the role of green resource productivity, renewable energy, economic globalization, and economic growth towards advancing the pursuits of decarbonization in top energy transition economies. This study achieves this objective by adopting both asymmetric and symmetric econometric methods for the period between 1990 and 2021. This study adopted the Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR) to uncover the asymmetric effect of the regressors on carbon emissions. The MMQR results suggest that in all quantiles, green resource productivity, renewable energy, and economic globalization mitigate CO₂ emissions, while economic growth induces CO₂ emissions. Additionally, for the robustness analysis, we disaggregated economic globalization into trade and financial globalization and investigated their roles towards achieving decarbonization. We uncovered that financial globalization mitigates CO₂ emissions at all quantiles, but at the lower and middle quantiles, trade globalization mitigates CO₂ emissions. Moreover, for the symmetric estimation, the following estimators: Fixed effect Ordinary Least Square, Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square, and Dynamic Ordinary Least Square estimators were employed in this study. Their outcome corroborated the findings of this MMQR. For the Granger causality inference, the outcome suggests that there is a bi-directional causality between renewable energy and CO₂ emissions. Furthermore, we find a feedback causality association between financial globalization and CO₂ emissions, and a one-way causal interconnection is detected from CO₂ emissions to trade globalization. Moreover, we detected that there is a causal association flowing from economic globalization to CO₂ emissions. Finally, an unidirectional causal interaction is detected from economic growth to CO₂ emissions. Consequently, the research’s findings provide applicable policy.

Ecological footprint (EFP) measures the amount of area, that is land or sea, which is required to absorb the waste generated through human activities or to support the production of resources consumed by populations. EFP index therefore includes six dimensions that are cropland, forestland, carbon, fishing grounds, grazing land, and built-up area. Human activities have impacted the environment, leading to global warming, widespread droughts, and diseases. The present study aims to investigate the role of renewable energy (RE) and energy efficiency on the EFP index. Past researchers have widely used carbon emission (CE) to represent environmental impact, and recent studies have shown that EFP index is a better proxy of environmental degradation. Therefore, the present research differs from past studies in that it compares on how the determinants of environmental degradation affects EFP index and CE. Panel dataset of the OECD countries from 1990 to 2020 is employed. The CS-ARDL, DCCEMG, and AMG techniques, which overcome dynamics, heterogeneity, and cross-sectional dependence, are employed. The main findings depict that RE significantly reduces EFP and CE, while economic growth significantly exacerbates them. Energy efficiency reduces CE, but does not significantly affect EFP. Non-renewable energy and research & development significantly increase CE, while an insignificant positive effect is observed with EFP. This paper shows that factors that significantly influence CE may not always significantly affect the EFP index. Thus, to reduce environmental degradation it is fundamental to understand on how each dimension of EFP is influenced.

This study inspects the environmental impact of resource efficiency, natural gas efficiency, and coal efficiency in the top energy transition economies while incorporating economic growth and globalization, social globalization, political globalization, and economic globalization as control variables. We utilized the method of moments quantile regression to analyze a dataset from 1990 to 2021, while the dynamic ordinary least square, fixed-effect ordinary least square, and fully modified ordinary least square methods were used for robustness analysis. The outcomes of the estimators revealed that coal efficiency and natural gas efficiency contribute to the decline in CO₂ emissions. Conversely, the results further indicated that globalization, economic growth, resource efficiency, social globalization, political globalization, and economic globalization intensify CO₂ emissions. Furthermore, the panel Granger causality test was also utilized, which revealed evidence of a bidirectional causality association between CO₂ emissions and all regressors except for coal efficiency and economic globalization. However, a unidirectional causal connection was identified from CO₂ emissions to coal efficiency and economic globalization. From the observed outcomes alongside the inferences drawn from the Granger causality analysis, we offer a holistic policy approach for attaining carbon neutrality by driving the development and implementation of energy efficiency initiatives. Graphical abstract