Energy efficiency and resilience transitions: empirical evidence on the roles of energy productivity and environmental innovation
摘要
Recently, climate-resilient disruptions and geopolitical shocks in energy markets have made resilience a pressing policy issue. In this research, the effects of environmental innovation (linear and quadratic), energy productivity, natural resources, and research and development (R&D) expenditure on the energy resilience index (ERI) are analyzed. The ERI is constructed of the losses in transmission and distribution, net energy imports, per capita energy use, consumption of renewable energy sources and CO2 emissions via the entropy method. Using a balanced panel of 10 economies (Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Norway, Spain, and the UK) for 1996–2023, this study estimates a nonlinear resilience model through moment quantile regression. The results are verified using panel-corrected standard error and Driscoll–Kraay estimators. According to the results, linear environmental innovation is negative and significant for all quantiles (Q0.25–Q0.90), whereas the quadratic term is positive and significant. Taken together, these results imply a U-shaped relationship between innovation and resilience. In contrast, energy productivity, natural resources, and R&D are favorable and considerably beyond the resilience distribution, with compelling confirmation in various specifications. These results are consistent with quantile-specific policy sequencing: low-resilience countries should lower grid losses, import risks, flexibility and storage and increase energy efficiency programs to avoid transition friction costs. Countries with higher resilience should scale up mission-oriented green innovation and R&D to enhance resilience.