Sustainability at the crossroads: what roles do renewable energy and financial development play in environmental degradation through the EKC framework?
摘要
In the face of escalating global distress over climate change and its across-the-board concerns, this study explores the impact of economic growth, financial development, and renewable energy on environmental degradation within the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) framework for BRICS economies. The present study considered annual data from 1990–2023 and applied second-generation estimation techniques as per the sensitivity of the data. Panel Quantile Regression (PQR) is destined to capture the heterogeneous effects across different levels of environmental degradation. The PQR results reveal a non-linear relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation, supporting the EKC hypothesis. Initially, economic growth exacerbates environmental degradation, particularly in the middle and higher quantiles. However, as the economy continues to grow, further economic growth reduces environmental degradation. Nevertheless, renewable energy and financial development are concluded as sources of reducing environmental degradation in the BRICS economies. These findings underscore the importance of quantile-specific approaches for more nuanced policy formulations, emphasizing the differential impact of economic and energy variables on environmental degradation across various levels of emissions distribution.