BRICS carbon neutrality target: Measuring the impact of electricity production from renewable energy sources and globalization

Globally, the issues of climate change and global warming rapidly rises due to extensive CO2 emission. In this regard, countries across the globe initiate policies to combat CO2 emissions and attain a carbon neutrality target. As an emerging research area, the current study investigated carbon neutrality targets for BRICS economies (excluding Russia) covering the period from 1980 to 2018. This study covers important variables that influence both the economy and energy. Considering the role of electricity production from renewable energy and globalization, this study also checked for the role of income and renewable energy consumption. Various second generation unit root and cointegration tests are used for the panel data to observe the stationarity and long run relationship among these variables. Also, the DOLS and FMOLS are employed for the long-run estimation. Additionally, the article utilizes fixed effect and random effect models. This study also utilizes the augmented mean group (AMG) to confirm the prior findings. The empirical findings present evidence of the validity of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in the region. Moreover, the findings suggest that income and globalization play a positive role in carbon dioxide emission, which negatively influences the carbon neutrality target. However, electricity production from renewable energy and renewable energy consumption is efficient for achieving carbon neutrality targets. Specifically, the AMG estimates reveal that a percent increase in GDP and globalization increases 1.087 and 0.0342 % CO2 emissions while a unit increase in renewable electricity production and renewable energy consumption declines CO2 emissions by 0.0205 and 0.0143 %, respectively. The results are found robust and significant. Based on the empirical findings, policy implications are provided that would lead the BRICS region to attain the carbon neutrality target by revising the policies concerning globalization and economic growth. Also, proper attention should be paid to renewable energy electricity adaptation.