How renewable energy consumption and digitalization contribute to environmental sustainability: Evidence from One Belt One Road countries

This study investigates the crucial relationship between renewable energy consumption and digitization to drive sustainable development, specifically focusing on One Belt One Road (OBOR) countries. Using OBOR countries, panel data is collected over 24 years from 1996 to 2019.An enhanced System GMM estimator is employed in order to overcome challenges associated with methodology such as endogeneity, homoscedasticity and serial correlation which ensures reliable and robust payoff results. Our findings illustrate that how renewable energies play vital roles in helping nations to reduce carbon emissions.It unleash that the use of renewable energy has a favorable impact on CO2 emissions therefore it is a significant source of environmental sustainability. Digitalization via innovations also greatly increases energy system efficiencies and management, contributing further to reduced emissions. The study also explores the estimate of renewable energy, digitalization, and their interaction term to show their combined impact on carbon emissions. The results of such aspects interacting together is their mutual reinforcement, when technological innovations are integrated into renewable power systems, that increase emissions reduction efforts by addressing issues like intermittency and optimizing distribution and storage. Our study has significant policy implications for OBOR nations, suggesting greater investment in renewable energy infrastructure as well as digital technologies. Policies that promote incorporation of technological technologies into energy systems could expand utilization of renewable sources and make energy grids more adaptable, flexible and capable of supporting large-scale shifts toward more sustainable energy sources.