How does the shock in technological innovation and hydroelectricity consumption influence the pursuit of carbon neutrality in Colombia?

Environmental degradation has become one of the most critical issues in the last decade. This is because the future of humanity is threatened by climate change. As a result, increasing the use of sustainable energy sources and technological innovation could be the best approach to reducing environmental degradation. Hence, this research evaluates the asymmetric influence of technological innovation (TIN) and hydroelectricity consumption (HEC) on carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) in Colombia from 1989 to 2018, which is yet to be comprehensively evaluated using modern econometric estimators such as non-linear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) and frequency domain causality. Besides, it is essential to state that Colombia has established the specific ambition of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. The NARDL results uncovered that (i) the effect of the positive variation in TIN and HEC is adverse and significant, suggesting that the expansion in TIN and HEC enhances environmental progress in the long-term; (ii) the negative shock in HEC also comes out to be negative and significant in the short and long-term, suggesting that it triggers the deterioration of the environment; (iii) the negative shock in TIN has a neutral impact on CO2 in the long-term; (iv) for the causality test, the frequency domain causality test detects a bidirectional causality between TIN and CO2, while a unidirectional causality is observed from HEC to CO2. Based on these results, policy insights are formulated.