The effect of clean energy investment on CO2 emissions: Insights from a Spatial Durbin Model

Chunfei Weng, Jingong Huang*, Matthew Greenwood-Nimmo

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

14 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We estimate the direct and indirect effects of clean energy investment on carbon emissions using a Spatial Durbin Model fitted to a panel of 72 countries from 2000 to 2018. We find that a 1 percent increase in domestic clean energy investment reduces domestic carbon emissions by approximately 0.05 percent on average, controlling for country characteristics. However, this benefit is offset by a carbon leakage effect, whereby a 1 percent increase in clean energy investment among neighboring countries leads to about a 0.28 percent increase in domestic carbon emissions. This is suggestive of the outsourcing of pollution from one country to another and indicates that ad hoc policies to promote clean energy investment may be ineffective in achieving global emissions abatement. We conclude that a coordinated international policy framework is required to prevent jurisdiction-shopping by polluters.

Original languageEnglish
Article number107000
JournalEnergy Economics
Volume126
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2023

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