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Within an effort of European Union (EU) policy to achieve carbon-neutral agriculture, the present study intends to explore the impact of carbon emissions generated by different sources related to agriculture namely energy used in farming, by enteric fermentation and by fertilizers on agricultural income in 25 countries from EU.

In order to evaluate the environmental – economic performance linkage for EU agriculture, we employ a couple of different widely used panel unit root tests explicitly Levin, Li and Chu, Im, Pesaran and Shin, ADF and PP Fisher Chi-square test cointegration test (Pedroni and Kao cointegration tests) and model estimation methodologies namely the FMOLS and DOLS and ARDL – PMG models.

All the cointegration techniques employed namely Pedroni, Kao test and Johansen Pesaran cointegration tests validate the existence of long run relationships. The most significant finding is the model estimation based on three different methodologies namely FMOLS, DOLS and ARDL/PMG models. No convergence in the results was found by different estimation models. For the short term coefficients and more specifically for the case of carbon emissions generated by energy the impact on agricultural income seems to be decreasing with a decreasing trend, a result that validates the little effort made by farmers to limit carbon emissions along with the limited efficacy of the implementing policy. The same findings are valid for the first two estimation models while for the case of the third model the reversed relationship is validated. For the carbon emissions generated by enteric fermentation, the inverted-U pattern is validated with DOLS and ARDL/PMG model while for the case of fertilizers only the third model confirms the validity of inverted-U- pattern.

Based on the obtained empirical results, a list of policy implications is unveiled with multiple impacts on the strategy and practices adopted by farmers in order for the objective of eco efficieny to be achieved.

The conducted research is focusing on the environmental – economic performance linkages for EU agriculture and examines the role of agri – environmental policy in the evolution of the particular relationship for different sources of environmental pollution in agricultural activity.

The energy efficiency policy is a priority component of the overall economic policy of different countries striving to ensure the competitiveness and sustainability of national economic development. The improvement of energy efficiency represents an important economic task for the post-Soviet countries, characterized by excessive energy intensity of the economy, and the solution of this task requires proper information and analytical support: a system for accounting and analyzing energy consumption indicators. The present research is aimed at developing the tools to support decision-making in the sphere of evaluation and estimation of performance of the State energy efficiency policy of territories and testing these tools on the example of Russian regions. The study has been carried out using the methods of statistics, economic, mathematical and econometric modeling, structural, dynamic and comparative analyses. The following tools have been proposed: the method for differentiated accounting of various factors’ influence on the dynamics of energy consumption in the regions and for estimating the index of technological efficiency of electricity consumption; the method for the empirical classification of territories by types of their energy and economic development. We’ve revealed the general trend and typological features in the dynamics of electricity consumption efficiency indicators in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and carried out the decomposition factor and comparative analysis of energy consumption patterns of the Volgograd region over 2005–2014 on the basis of the proposed tools.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the opportunity for the energy policy in Brazil to tackle the very high cost-effectiveness potencial of solar energy to the power system. Three mechanisms to achieve ambitious reductions in the greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector by 2030 and 2040 are assessed wherein treated as solar targets under ambitious reductions in the greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector. Then, three mechanisms to achieve these selected solar targets are suggested.

This paper reviews current and future incentive mechanisms to promote solar energy. An integrated energy system optimization model shows the most cost-efficient deployment level. Incentive mechanisms can promote renewable sources, aiming to tackle climate change and ensuring energy security, while taking advantage of endogenous energy resources potential. Based on a literature review, as well as on the specific characteristics of the Brazilian power system, under restrictions for the expansion of hydroelectricity and ambitious limitation in the emissions of greenhouse gases from the power sector.

The potential unexploited of solar energy is huge but it needs the appropriate incentive mechanism to be deployed. These mechanisms would be more effective if they have a specific technological and temporal focus. The solar energy deployment in large scale is important to the mitigation of climate change.

The value of the research is twofold: estimations of the cost-effective potential of solar technologies, generated from an integrated optimization energy model, fully calibrated for the Brazilian power system, while tacking the increasing electricity demand, the expected reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the need to increase the access to clean and affordable energy, up to 2040; proposals of three mechanisms to deploy centralized PV, distributed PV and solar thermal power, taking the best experiences in several countries and the recent Brazilian cases.

While sustainable development policies are mostly set based on United Nations (UN) geoscheme classification, no study attempts to examine the impact of influential economic variables such as energy consumption (EC) and merchandise exports (ME) on carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission in the UN geoscheme regions. The purpose of this paper is to examine the possible impact of EC and ME on CO₂ emission in UN geoscheme classification regions such as Africa, America, Arab, Asia and Europe.

This paper uses autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL), Pedroni panel cointegration and panel Granger causality methodologies covering an annual panel data sampling period from 1971 to 2014.

The results show that there is bidirectional causality between all three variables in the European and American panel except for the non-causality from CO₂ to EC in the American panel. These findings suggest possible consequences of weaker energy efficiency (even under environmental policy tightening) and strong demand for energy-intensive economic activities in those regions. Developed countries with higher environmental policy tightening (America and Europe) show significant estimates from the chosen tests supporting the Porter hypothesis. EC and ME have a long-run impact on CO₂ emission in American and European panels. The African region has the least environmental impact of pollution from ME.

The ME and EC have a direct significant impact on CO₂ emission in America and Europe. As these causalities, co-integrations and their impacts share a long-run equilibrium relationship, policymakers must design long-term industry policies such as cleaner production techniques focusing on environmentally sustainable practices. Also, it is suggested that the policymakers must ensure that they implement more robust policies and standards for environmental-friendly export production.

This is the first paper that examines the impact of EC and ME on CO₂ emission in UN geoscheme regions. The findings of this paper provide theoretical implications supporting Porter hypothesis and practical implications for policymaking.

This study aims to investigate the interrelationships and elasticities between the production of renewable energy (RE) and three key variables: oil prices, gross domestic product (GDP) and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions.

The research uses panel data and time-series analyses for 10 developed and 16 emerging countries for the period 1976–2018, to identify panel and country-specific elasticity of RE production and dynamic causal relationships between these variables. The study uses an autoregressive distributed lag model to determine the long- and short-run dynamics between RE production and the three variables in each country.

Results show a long-run elasticity between RE and GDP, and short-run dynamics between RE and oil prices and CO₂ emissions in the developed countries. Whereas in the emerging countries category, there were long-run relationships between RE and GDP, CO₂ emissions and oil prices.

Results of this study are in fact crucial and can be applied in the drafting of resilience policies to tackle energy vulnerability as well as sustainable growth. The study results will inform and guide governments on the right policies to stimulate RE production in their own countries in the interests of both their national security and sustainable development globally.

This paper attempts to contribute to the literature in at least two ways. First, research on identifying common determining factors, including socioeconomic factors, in both emerging and advanced economies is considerably scarce. Most of the previous research in this field has focused only on the absolute value of RE production in a particular geographical area. Second, many studies have focused on RE consumption. This research differs from them by focusing on the production of RE. Thus, the main contribution of this study is to fill these gaps. The study also presents novel empirical evidence to determine RE production elasticity from 26 countries.

While science has researched the impact of air pollution on human health, the economic dimension of it has been less researched so far. Renewable energy consumption is an important factor in determining the level of life expectancy and reducing health expenditure. Thus, this study aims to investigate the impact of renewable energy, carbon emissions, health expenditure and urbanization on life expectancy in G-7 countries over the period of 2000–2019.

This study has adopted a novel Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR). Furthermore, as a robustness check for MMQR, the fully modified ordinary least square, dynamic ordinary least squares and fixed effect ordinary least square estimators have been used.

The results indicated that renewable energy consumption, health expenditure and urbanization lead to an increase in life expectancy across all quantiles (5th to 95th), whereas higher carbon dioxide emissions reduce life expectancy at birth across all the quantiles (5th to 95th).

The empirical findings conclude that governments should recognize their potential in renewable energy sources and devise policies such as tax-related regulations, or relevant incentives to encourage further investments in this field.

This paper in comparison to the other research studies used MMQR to investigate the impact of factors affecting life expectancy. Also, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, so far no study has investigated the impact of renewable energy on life expectancy in G-7 countries.

Introduction: India has the 15th-largest domestic natural gas consumption (NGC), critical to sustainable economic growth. Promoting natural gas will have a crucial impact on production in all industries.

Purpose: This research gives an overview of NGC and gross domestic product (GDP) in India from 1990 to 2021 and investigates the association and nature of causality between NGC and GDP in India.

Methodology: For the years 1990 through 2021, we used annual statistics from the NGC and the GDP of India. Both research variables data have been taken from the World Bank Indicator.

Findings: There is no causality and correlation between natural gas and GDP in India.

Practical Implications: Based on the research, the Government of India can create different policies for substituting natural gas for other energy sources to have a healthier impact on a sustainable environment in the short and long term. In the future, researchers can work on environmental degradation and GDP.

This paper aims to propose an energy efficiency plan (with technical and behavioural improvement measures) for a Portuguese higher education building – the Teaching Building of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra (FEUC).

The study was developed in the context of both the “Green Campus – Challenge for Energy Efficiency in Higher Education” and the Energy for Sustainability Initiative of the University of Coimbra, Portugal. An energy audit was conducted based on the analysis of the energy consumption profiles. A monitoring campaign was carried out to measure and disaggregate the electricity consumption. The consumption of natural gas and water were also assessed. The building envelope and the heating and lighting systems were also evaluated. Some patterns of energy-environmental behaviours of the academic community were investigated through a Web-based survey.

The energy efficiency plan contemplates short-term tangible/intangible actions. It also considers the investment and payback period of the tangible measures. The implementation of three improvement measures in the lighting system would lead to a consumption reduction of about 26,123 kWh/year, avoiding the emission of 3,704 KgCO2/year, for an initial cost of 9,920 (payback period of 3.7 years).

Results are restricted to the case study and there are limitations in their generalisation outside of their context. However, they show some broadly implications and trends that have relevance for the higher education sector. This paper highlights the importance of engaging students, faculty and technical staff for working together on the assessment of the energy efficiency of the buildings where they study and work.

The higher education sector holds important functions in educating the next generation of professionals for a sustainable culture. The categories of activities described in this paper are good examples of what can be done within the academic community for acting towards sustainability. The results also pointed out that making users aware of their energy consumption is a priority towards the energy efficiency in higher education buildings.

Reductions on energy consumption are expected if the energy efficiency plan would be implemented. The results of the behavioural study were presented to the FEUC’s board of directors to be integrated in the “Good Practices Manual on Water and Energy Management”.

Within the framework of EU policies and measures to develop a just and fair green energy transition model. This paper aims to offer valuable insights into a paramount concern not so well debated in the literature, i.e. the spatial variation of energy poverty.

This empirical analysis investigates the regional variation of energy poverty we draw on a sample of more than 300,000 Spanish households, extracted from the Spanish Household Budget Survey (HBS) for the period 2006–2022. To characterize the probability of a household finding itself in a situation of energy poverty the authors use a discrete choice univariate probit model.

The results confirm that energy poverty is a phenomenon that is asymmetrically distributed across Spain, and mainly occurs in un-densely populated regions. In addition, the findings demonstrate that the incidence of energy poverty drivers is highly heterogeneous across regions.

The paper ends with some recommendations for policymakers suggesting that countries need to design an energy poverty policy for the households that jointly pursue both a correct identification of vulnerable groups and a match with the type of measure to the characteristics of each region.

This study enhances previous research by considering the case of areas at a lower level of aggregation (i.e. on the NUTS two regions in Spain called autonomous communities) and offers the opportunity to tailor policies to those regions most in need. Furthermore, to provide a more realistic picture of the complex phenomenon of energy poverty, the authors use the information for the period 2006–2022 differentiating by economic micro-cycle. This timespan allows the authors to understand the dynamics of energy poverty in periods of economic crisis, including the effects of the 2008 crisis and the present global energy crisis.