The impact of climate aid on carbon emissions reduction and the role of renewable energy: evidence from the Belt and Road countries

Determinants of carbon emissions in Kenya and policy implications

Carbon dioxide emissions are the primary greenhouse gasses behind global climate change and its associated effects. Climate change adversely impacts the environment, biodiversity, and human health. The ability to tame carbon dioxide emissions will help in the fight against climate change. However, the recent pace of rising carbon dioxide emissions raises concerns about winning the war against climate change. World leaders are determined to take actions that will lower emissions. Thus, there is a worldwide effort to achieve net-zero emissions. Consequently, it is crucial to comprehend the specific factors that contribute to carbon emissions of specific economies so that countries can develop and enforce effective strategies for reducing carbon output, mitigating the effects of climate change, and improving recovery programs. Despite many empirical studies conducted in Africa on the determinants of carbon emissions, the results remain inconclusive and inadequate, leaving a void for further research. This study seeks to fill this knowledge gap by modeling the relationship between Kenya's carbon emissions (which have been increasing since the early 2000s), and mobile technology adoption, renewable energy mix, tourism development, development assistance, income, and global financial crises, utilizing the most current data from 1995 to 2021 from the World Bank's database. The ARDL, FMOLS, CCR, and DOLS analysis results reveal that mobile technology, tourism, development aid, and global financial crises increase Kenya's carbon emissions in the long run. At the same time, income and renewable energy reduce short- and long-term impacts. The significant insight from these results is that enhancing renewable energy development, mobile technology, and development assistance can promote a sustainable environment. From these findings, the study proposes many policy recommendations to help decision-makers, communities, companies, and the government in Kenya allocate resources and implement resilience and mitigation policies and programs in the areas most susceptible to the effects of climate change.

The spatial-temporal effects of energy consumption and institutional quality on CO2 emission: evidence from Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has boosted economic development while harming the ecology. It is vital to track its CO2 emissions to guide the BRI toward a green future and low carbon. Our research contributes to these goals in two ways. First, this research examines the spatial-temporal effects of institutional quality (IQ) and renewable and non-renewable energy consumption on CO2 emissions for 75 BRI countries from 1990 to 2019. Second, geographical implications are considered when assessing the factors that affect CO2 emissions on a regional scale. Several diagnostic methods are used to determine the significant spatial impacts, and spatial panel models (SPMs) are used to analyze the phenomenon's spillover and direct consequences. The empirical findings demonstrate that increased IQ and renewable energy (RNC) harm the country's CO2 emissions. These negative consequences spread geographically to adjacent countries of the impacted country. Moreover, non-renewable energy (NC) positively affects the CO2 of the impacted nation and its neighbors. Hence, the objective of reducing CO2 emissions compels BRI to establish an effective plan to reduce non-renewable energy, enhance IQ, resolve internal and external disputes, and foster religious and ethnic harmony in BRI-affected nations. Positive direct and negative spatial impacts of economic expansion highlight the zero-sum game of nations, so high CO2-emitting countries should exercise caution when implementing economic policies.

The role of economic production, energy consumption, and trade openness in urbanization-environment nexus: a heterogeneous analysis on developing economies along the Belt and Road route

In today's world, where urbanization is at its pinnacle, has created a significant economic gap between rural and urban populations in developing economies and substantially influenced environmental degradation. This study investigates the relationship between urbanization and environmental degradation via carbon emissions among developing countries along the Belt and Road route from 1990 to 2019 while using economic production, energy consumption, and trade openness as control variables. The study engages current econometric methodologies to uncover accurate and reliable findings, and the outcomes reveal that the panel under investigation is cross-sectionally dependent and heterogeneous. Therefore, the AMG, CCEMG, and DCCEMG estimators are employed to examine the effect connection between the variables. The outcomes unveil that urbanization, economic production, and energy consumption escalate environmental degradation, but trade openness is confirmed as a trivial determinant of environmental degradation. Furthermore, the causal connections between the variables disclose bi-directional causalities between urbanization and environmental degradation and between energy consumption and environmental degradation. Nevertheless, uni-directional causalities are affirmed, spanning from economic production to environmental degradation and from trade openness to environmental degradation. Finally, policy implications are discussed.

Does the belt and road initiative reduce the carbon emission intensity of African participating countries?

The ambition of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) became an integral part of carbon emission abatement. The BRI impact on African participating countries' battle against carbon emissions intensity is a contentious subject. Urbanization and industrialization are the main sources of CO₂ emissions in Africa and the driving force in the BRI. Using data on variables from 2010 to 2019 in 54 African countries, applying Difference-in-differences model (DID) and Propensity Score Matching-Difference-in-differences regression (PSM-DID), and robustness tests to investigate if the BRI's participation tends to reduce the carbon emissions intensity of African participating countries. This study finds that African countries' participation in the BRI minimizes the intensity of carbon emissions in those countries. Further analysis shows that low carbon development of BRI countries is more significant in countries that joined the BRI than those that did not join it. In addition, our results show that improving economic transformation such as the innovation in technology and industries' structures can boost the CO₂ emission reduction technologies. These findings suggest that developing BRI collaboration with China will benefit the environment and African BRI participating countries' ability to achieve sustainable development. Our results further support the BRI's effect and recommend policy implications and methods for those countries' CO₂ emission prevention and control actions.