Search

This research explores the role of green resource productivity, renewable energy, economic globalization, and economic growth towards advancing the pursuits of decarbonization in top energy transition economies. This study achieves this objective by adopting both asymmetric and symmetric econometric methods for the period between 1990 and 2021. This study adopted the Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR) to uncover the asymmetric effect of the regressors on carbon emissions. The MMQR results suggest that in all quantiles, green resource productivity, renewable energy, and economic globalization mitigate CO2 emissions, while economic growth induces CO2 emissions. Additionally, for the robustness analysis, we disaggregated economic globalization into trade and financial globalization and investigated their roles towards achieving decarbonization. We uncovered that financial globalization mitigates CO2 emissions at all quantiles, but at the lower and middle quantiles, trade globalization mitigates CO2 emissions. Moreover, for the symmetric estimation, the following estimators: Fixed effect Ordinary Least Square, Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square, and Dynamic Ordinary Least Square estimators were employed in this study. Their outcome corroborated the findings of this MMQR. For the Granger causality inference, the outcome suggests that there is a bi-directional causality between renewable energy and CO2 emissions. Furthermore, we find a feedback causality association between financial globalization and CO2 emissions, and a one-way causal interconnection is detected from CO2 emissions to trade globalization. Moreover, we detected that there is a causal association flowing from economic globalization to CO2 emissions. Finally, an unidirectional causal interaction is detected from economic growth to CO2 emissions. Consequently, the research's findings provide applicable policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nigeria, at the 2021 Conference of Parties (COP26) meeting in Glasgow announced a commitment to transitioning her carbon economy to reach net-zero by 2060. One year after, the country's drive for carbon neutrality is shrouded with uncertainties despite numerous policies targeted at it. This study employed the Multilevel Perspective (MLP) and PESTLE (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, Environmental) analytical framework to assess the politics of low-carbon transition in Nigeria. We used a triangulation of literature review, document analysis, and survey to build the theoretical, historical, and empirical bases for the enquiry. The findings show that the current low-carbon transition process is characterised by few potential drivers and many barriers with critical uncertainty effects. The key drivers are: Nigeria's potentials for carbon sink/nature-based solutions; vast renewable energy resources; strong niche market demand; and huge opportunities for employment in the renewable energy sector. The major barriers are: poor management of the energy regime; weak infrastructural base; dependence on global climate fund; fossil fuel-based economy; cost of renewable energy options; and impacts of climate change, among others. The barriers with critical impacts outweigh the potential drivers at the ratio of 4:1 thereby playing greater role in characterizing Nigeria's transition pathway as the 'reconfiguration transition pathway' within the 'emergent transformation context.' Therefore, unless the identified regime barriers are eliminated, the current transition pathway may not deliver the low-carbon targets. Considering the huge mitigation potentials of Nigeria's vast forests and natural ecosystem for carbon sink, the study recommends investment in nature-based solutions in synergy with energy system management as the most convenient and cost-effective pathway to attaining carbon neutrality by 2060. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful energy transitions, also referred to as leapfrog development, present enormous prospects for EU nations to become carbon neutral by shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. Along with climate change, EU countries must address energy security and dependency issues, exacerbated by factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic, rising energy costs, conflicts between Russia and Ukraine, and political instability. Diversifying energy sources, generating renewable energy, increasing energy efficiency, preventing energy waste, and educating the public about environmental issues are proposed as several strategies. The study draws the conclusion that central European countries may transition to a clean energy economy and become carbon neutral on economic and strategic levels by locating alternative clean energy supply sources, reducing energy use, and producing renewable energy. According to the study, the EU energy industry can be decarbonised and attain energy security using three basic strategies, such as supply diversification, energy savings, and quicker adoption of renewable energy to replace fossil fuels. The energy transformation industry still needs to improve energy efficiency, incorporate a circular and sustainable bioeconomy, and support renewable energies, including solar, wind, hydropower, nuclear, and hydrogen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since energy-related carbon dioxide emissions represent two-thirds of all greenhouse gases, a transition towards cleaner and renewable energy is imperative. Moreover, the carbon neutrality targets set by countries hinge upon increased uptake of renewable energy and storage. Some of these energy transition (ET) interventions are highly mineral intensive and depend upon critical minerals (CM), which are scarce and face supply challenges. However, what is meant by 'critical' is not uniform and static. The interface between ET and minerals is still an emerging area in policy studies literature. This paper presents a systematic and comprehensive review of 68 studies from a policy perspective studying the critical minerals – ET nexus. Most literature has approached the issue from the perspective of economics or geopolitics, followed by a broad governance approach. Very little attention has been given to legal and institutional aspects and justice in particular. The review suggests that the main challenges associated with the subject relate to the criticality of minerals, raw material security, trade and geopolitics, circular economy strategies, environmental and social impacts, and energy justice. • In-depth review on critical minerals-energy transition relationship from a policy perspective. • Discussion on key issues & challenges around minerals - energy transition interface. • Highlights the need for more research on legal & institutional issues on the subject. • Discussion on complexities in defining 'criticality'. • A review of 68 policy studies on parameters such as geography, intervention, theme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Full decarbonization strategies to achieve a carbon neutrality by 2050. • Microalgae-based hydrogen technologies have high potentials as a renewable energy. • Large-scale hydrogen production is achievable by improving current technologies. • Recent perspectives, future challenges, and key technologies of biohydrogen. The ever-increasing quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere can be attributed to the rapid increase in the world population as well as the expansion of globalization. Hence, achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 stands as a challenging task to accomplish. Global industrialization had necessitated the need to enhance the current production systems to reduce greenhouse gases emission, whilst promoting the capture of carbon dioxide from atmosphere. Hydrogen is often touted as the fuel of future via substituting fossil-based fuels. In this regard, renewable hydrogen happens to be a niche sector of novel technologies in achieving carbon neutrality. Microalgae-based biohydrogen technologies could be a sustainable and economical approach to produce hydrogen from a renewable source, while simultaneously promoting the absorption of carbon dioxide. This review highlights the current perspectives of biohydrogen production as an alternate source of energy. In addition, future challenges associated with biohydrogen production at large-scale application, storage and transportation are included. Key technologies in producing biohydrogen are finally described in building a carbon–neutral future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • H 2 , above all the green H 2 , will play a key role in the future energy transition. • Many countries are adopting hydrogen policies towards the net-zero GHG. • Storage and distribution are key enabling technologies for widespread H 2 deployment. • Hydrogen deployment in a real CCGT proves a remarkable reduction of CO 2 emissions. • H 2 leads to carbon footprint reduction in Power to Gas and Gas to Electricity fields. Hydrogen is gaining momentum in the current global energy transition framework. In fact a great and widespread enthusiasm is growing up towards it, as indicated by the current worldwide economic and political strategies, which endorse the carbon neutrality by 2030 and a fast transition to clean energy. Green hydrogen has the potential to create a virtuous cycle for the future renewables-based electricity grids, as it can provide the much-needed flexibility to power systems, acting as a buffer to non-dispatchable renewable generation. Indeed, the excess energy, provided by conventional and renewable power plants, can be stored as hydrogen and then employed to produce electricity (fuel cells or power systems), heat (combustion) or both (co-generation), abating drastically the greenhouse gas production. In this scenario, it is important to understand what benefits could derive from the use of hydrogen. For this reason, the present work not only aims at reviewing the recent updates on hydrogen economy (in terms of the main advantages and drawbacks) but also focuses on determining the impact that this hydrogen may have in various sectors (transport, industry and power generation). Different assessments have been carried out showing how hydrogen can effectively contribute to the carbon neutrality goal. This work points out that hydrogen can be really sustainable if produced via electrolysis powered by renewable energies. Furthermore, for the mobility, the use of fuel cells currently turns out to be less efficient than the adoption of Li-ion batteries, but at the same time far less polluting ( CO 2 , eq ) and labor intensive. Finally, a near-term solution to contrast the power generation carbon footprint, namely the blending of fossil fuels with hydrogen, has been investigated. Thus, a real Combined Cycle Gas Turbine power plant has been selected as a case study, in order to assess the impact of the hydrogen employment in terms of power output and emissions with respect to the current status of the plant fueled with 100% natural gas. As a result, using a mixture with 70% CH 4 and 30% H 2 a remarkable reduction of CO 2 can be achieved (0.28 Mt CO 2 / year). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]