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The sustainability paradigm has gained global attention, and the same has been expected from the economies having increasing levels of environmental footprints over the past couple of decades. This research aims to investigate the nexus between clean energy technologies and climate change mitigation among the top ecologically pollutant (TEP) economies during 1996–2020. The research incorporated other drivers of climate change, including energy efficiency, industrialization, and sustainable policies through environmental regulations. The methodological context covers the necessary preliminary tests and the Method of Moment Quantile Regression (MMQR). The preliminary results indicate that TEP economies are interdependent with the heterogenous slope coefficients, stationarity data trends, and cointegrated relationships. The findings from the MMQR unveiled that clean energy technologies tend to mitigate climate change from 0.10th to 0.70th quantiles. Relatedly, energy efficiency reduces the environmental burden across all the quantiles except for the 0.10th one. Conversely, industrialization and economic growth cause an upward shift in climate change among TEP economies across all the quantiles, suggesting a need to shift production-based economies to more service-intensive ones. However, the study found no significant evidence for the nexus between sustainable environmental policies and climate change. The robustness checks also validate the MMQR estimations; however, their parameters' magnitude substantially varied. These outcomes encourage policymakers to implement holistic strategies supporting energy innovation, technologies, and efficiency improvements while controlling the adverse effects of industrialization and traditional growth models. [Display omitted] • Mitigating climate change needs a universal call. • A novel approach, MMQR, has been applied. • Both clean energy technologies and energy efficiency reduce ecological footprints. • Industrialization and economic growth disturb the sustainability paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union launched a set of policies as part of its 2020 climate and energy package aimed at meeting its 20/20/20 headline targets for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. This paper evaluates how successful new-to-the-market climate change mitigation technologies (CCMT) are in helping EU member states (MS) reach these goals and, furthermore, whether there are differences between sectors subject to EU-wide polices. To do so, we relate CCMT patent counts to two specific headline targets: (1) achieving 20% of gross final energy consumption from renewables, and (2) achieving a 20% increase in energy efficiency. Our results provide the first ex-post evaluation of the effectiveness of these technologies for combating climate change. Moreover, our sectoral impact assessment points to significant differences in the way in which these technologies contribute to policy goals across the sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the energy system of the Basilicata region (southern Italy) to highlight, through a scenario analysis, its possible future development in compliance with the European Commission's long-term vision. The IEA-ETSAP methodology was utilized to model and analyse the Basilicata energy system in a business- as -usual scenario, based on the assumptions of the 2010 Regional Energy and Environmental Policy Plan, and in two low-carbon scenarios, decarbonisation and high energy efficiency, which, in line with the long-term European strategy, foresee an 85% carbon dioxide emission reduction and a 20% energy efficiency increase in 2050. The results highlight that electricity production from renewable energy sources (in particular wind energy), strongly supported by the regional policy, goes beyond the Basilicata Regional Energy-Environmental Plan forecast, with a further increase in the decarbonisation scenarios. In addition, solar thermal and highly efficient technologies are adopted in commercial and residential end-use sectors. An additional 9% reduction in energy consumption is achieved in the high energy efficiency scenario by passive houses. The proposed approach shows the usefulness of a modelling framework typically used for national and supranational analyses to support regional authorities in their decision-making process to obtain results in line with the European and national strategies. Application to the Basilicata region shows the usefulness of a consolidated framework for policy assessment at a local scale to assess regional contribution to the achievement of national climate mitigation targets that tend towards climate neutrality. • The role of regional authorities is essential to reach national decarbonisation goals. • TIMES can be advantageously used for regional energy system modelling and analysis. • Scenario analysis can be a powerful tool for policy evaluation. • A cap on carbon dioxide emissions leads to a 28% increase of electricity production. • Passive houses in Residential allow a further 5% reduction of energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]