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Clean energy is the most demanding issue for sustainable development, especially in post-COVID-19 scenario. The Government of India (GOI) has adopted various reform policies in the energy sector focusing on Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7). India has taken initiative on SDG 7 to ensure access to sustainable energy for all. The core interest area of this paper is to analyse recent energy reform policies in energy sectors covering power generation, transmission, distribution and consumption and discusses mechanism SDG target achievement within 2030 in India. In the COVID-19 pandemic scenario, every country faces a major issue of energy security since the undisrupted energy security is related to energy demand. In the time period of pandemic, industrial energy demand goes down rapidly all over the world, especially in India. Though in the eve of festive season in India the difference between the energy supply and demand slightly overcomes. In the year 2003, GOI through Electricity Act opened electricity market for private participation to increase efficiencies. In the COVID-19 pandemic scenario, every country faces a major issue of energy security since the undisrupted energy security is related to energy demand. Further, the Ministry of Power has taken several policies such as National Electrification Policy in 2005, National Tariff Policy, Rural Electrification Policy in 2009 and Integrated Energy Policy. This policy brief paper highlights the progress of clean energy in India and provides their future trajectory towards achieving SDG targets, especially in the period of COVID-19 pandemic.

The intensity of carbon emissions has led to the serious problem of global warming, and the consequences in terms of climatic disasters are gaining increasing attention worldwide. As the energy sector is responsible for most global emissions, developing clean energy is crucial to combat climate change. This study aims to examine the relationship between corporate governance and renewable energy (RE) consumption and explore the interaction between RE production and RE use.

The study adopts an econometric framework of a panel model, followed by the robustness check using alternative methods, including logit regressions. The bivariate probit model is used to analyze the interaction between the decision to use and the decision to produce RE. The analysis is based on a sample of 3,896 firms covering 45 countries worldwide.

The results reveal that appropriate governance mechanisms positively impact RE consumption. These include the existence of a sustainability committee; environmental, social and governance-based compensation policy; financial performance-based compensation; sustainability external audit; transparency; board gender diversity; and board independence. Firms with appropriate governance mechanisms are more likely to produce and use RE than others. Finally, while RE use positively impacts firm value and environmental performance, the authors find no significant effect on current profitability.

This study goes beyond previous research by exploring the impact of multiple governance mechanisms. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is also the first study examining the relationship between RE use and firm value. Overall, the findings suggest that RE transition requires, first of all, establishing appropriate governance mechanisms within companies.

Today’s world is struggling with the hardship of climate change that has drastically disturbed human life, wildlife and the earth’s biological system. This study aims to show how implementing climate change mitigation strategies and environmental protection measures can ensure sustainable development through collaborative efforts between governmental authorities and the nation’s populace.

An extensive literature review of studies is conducted from across the world concentrating on holistic, sustainable development, enabling a showcase of various conferences, action plans initiated and resolutions passed. VOSviewer software is used to quantify the results of bibliometric analysis and cluster analysis. A total of 260 research studies released between 1993 and 2022 on the Scopus platform are quantified in terms of topmost publications, collaborations among authors, citations index and year-wise publication. The search string has keywords including “climate change,” “sustainable development” and “environment protection.”

The study results revealed a steep increase in research publications in the last three years, from 2017 to 2021, which serves as the basis of the emergence of high-impact articles. The most cited document in this context throws light on assessing vulnerability to climatic risk and building adaptive capacity. It also draws attention to voluntary carbon markets’ rationale while condemning emission trading systems for climate change due to structural flaws, negative consequences and questionable emission-cutting effectiveness. Low energy demand, zero energy buildings and shared socioeconomic pathways should be implemented as strategies for sustainable development.

This study provides a significant opportunity to construct a valuable addition to mitigate climate change. Also, it shows a positive and significant correlation between mitigation and adaptation policies by analyzing publication efforts worldwide considering local climate risks and national adaptation mandates.

The originality of this study lies in its comprehensive approach, combining literature review, bibliometric analysis and cluster analysis to provide insights into current research trends, challenges and potential strategies for addressing climate change and promoting sustainable development. The study’s emphasis on the correlation between mitigation and adaptation policies adds practical significance to its findings.

Research on solar energy adoption offers a multidimensional scope and warrants exploration from multiple perspectives, including political, economic, management, behavioral, policy and innovation aspects. The aim of this paper is to comprehensively consolidate major research findings on the premise of solar energy adoption and to disclose gaps in the existing literature.

A bibliometric analysis of the vast literature is conducted on 1,009 meticulously shortlisted articles following the semi-systematic literature review methodology. A text analytics tool named BibExcel is used for synthesizing the literature, and the results are visualized using Gephi, Pajek and a spreadsheet application.

This paper reports the evolution of research in the selected domain. It is noted that research in this domain was primarily concentrated on four broad themes, namely, peer effects and spatial patterns, public perceptions, policies and economics and technological evolution. The analysis further reveals the merging of two of these themes as a result of transdisciplinary research and also projects future research trends emphasizing political interventions in technological evolution and diffusion.

Research trends and future research scope are identified and discussed in detail. The information revealed from the analysis, along with the research implications, will assist policymakers in noting the flaws in the current doctrines and practices, entrepreneurs in understanding potential enablers and barriers influencing solar energy adoption and budding scholars in comprehending the current research status and framing promising research objectives to close the existing research gaps.

This study aims to revisit the empirical debate about the asymmetric relationship between oil prices, energy consumption, CO₂ emissions and economic growth in a panel of 184 countries from 1981 to 2020.

A relatively new research method, the PVAR system GMM, is applied.

The outcome of the PVAR system GMM model at the group level in the study suggests that oil prices exert a positive but statistically insignificant effect on economic growth. Energy consumption is inversely related to economic growth but statistically significant, and the correlation between CO₂ emissions and economic growth is negative but statistically insignificant. The Granger causality test indicates that oil prices, CO₂ emissions, oil rents, energy consumption and savings jointly Granger-cause economic growth. A unidirectional causality runs from energy consumption, savings and economic growth to oil prices. At countries’ income grouping levels, oil prices, oil rent, CO₂ emissions, energy consumption and savings jointly Granger-cause economic growth for the high-income and upper-middle-income countries groups only, while those variables did not jointly Granger-cause economic growth for the low-income and lower-middle-income countries groups. The modulus emanating from the eigenvalue stability condition with the roots of the companion matrix indicates that the model is stable. The results support the asymmetric impacts of oil prices on economic growth and aid policy formulation, particularly the cross-country disparities regarding the nexus between oil prices and growth.

From a methodological perspective, to the best of the author’s knowledge, the study is the first attempt to use the PVAR system GMM and such a large sample group of 184 economies in the post-COVID-19 era to examine the impacts of oil prices on countries’ growth while controlling for other crucial variables, which is noteworthy. Two, using the World Bank categorisation of countries according to income groups, the study adds another layer of contribution to the literature by decomposing the 184 sample economies into four income groups: high-income, low-income, upper-middle-income and lower-middle-income groups to investigate the potential for asymmetric effects of oil prices on growth, the first of its kind in the post-COVID-19 period.

The escalating levels of greenhouse gas emissions have become a growing global concern, with household energy consumption emerging as a significant contributor. To develop effective public policies, it is crucial to understand the energy-saving behavior of households. This study delves into the determinants of energy-saving practices in a developing country.

The authors chose a multivariate probit model, as it allowed to look after possible correlations among seven energy-saving practices within households.

The findings underscore the significant influence of sociodemographic variables, such as gender, civil status, income and education, on energy-saving practices. Furthermore, the authors discovered that households where the head actively volunteers in social organizations are more likely to adopt energy-saving behaviors. Additionally, internet access positively contributes to pro-environmental behavior. This research reveals that certain energy-saving practices are interconnected, acting as complements or substitutes.

Recommendations for public policy include prioritizing education in rural areas to boost energy-saving practices, improving internet access in nonurban regions and promoting citizen involvement in social organizations to enhance environmental awareness and encourage energy-saving behavior. The authors contribute to literature evidencing that certain energy-saving practices are not independent of each other, they are rather complementary and, in some cases, substitutes.

Recommendations for public policy include prioritizing education in rural areas to boost energy-saving practices, improving Internet access in nonurban regions and promoting citizen involvement in social organizations to enhance environmental awareness and encourage energy-saving behavior.

Previous studies have overlooked these interdependencies, highlighting the necessity of a system of equations to yield more efficient estimates by considering correlations between error terms.

This study aims to assess the nexus among oil price (OP), renewable energy consumption (REC) and trade balance (TB) for India using annual time series data for the time period 1985–2019. In particular, the authors examine whether REC improves India's TB in the context of high oil import dependence.

The study uses autoregressive distributed lags (ARDL) bound testing approach that has the advantage of yielding estimates of long-run and short-run parameters simultaneously. Moreover, the small sample properties of this approach are superior to other multivariate cointegration techniques. Fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) are also applied to test the robustness of the results. The causality among the series is investigated through block exogeneity test based on vector error correction model.

The findings based on ARDL bounds testing approach indicate that OPs exert a negative impact on TB of India in both long run and short run, whereas REC has a favorable impact on the TB. In particular, 1% increase in OPs decreases TBs by 0.003% and a 1% increase in REC improves TB by 0.011%. The results of FMOLS and DOLS corroborate the findings from ARDL estimates. The results of block exogeneity test suggest unidirectional causation from OPs to TB; OPs to REC and REC to TB.

The study underscore the importance of renewable energy as a potential tool to curtail trade deficits in the context of Indian economy. Our results suggest that the policymakers must pay attention to the hindrances in augmentation of renewable energy usage and try to capitalize on the resulting gains for the TB.

Climate change is a major challenge for developing countries like India. Renewable energy sector is considered an important instrument toward attaining the twin objectives of environmental sustainability and employment generation. This study underscores another role of REC as a tool to achieve a sustainable trade position, which may help India save her valuable forex reserves for broader objectives of economic development.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that probes the dynamic nexus among OPs, REC and TB in Indian context. From a policy standpoint, the study underscores the importance of renewable energy as a potential tool to curtail trade deficits in context of India. From a theoretical perspective, the study extends the literature on the determinants of TB by identifying the role of REC in shaping TB.

Sub-Saharan Africa is a region that is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Renewable energy consumption could play a major role in mitigating the effects of climate change by improving environmental quality in the region. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of renewable energy consumption on environmental quality in sub-Saharan African countries.

The empirical investigation is based on the estimation of an augmented Green Solow model through the defactored instrumental variables approach on a sample of 34 countries over the period 1996 to 2018.

The results of two-stage defactored instrumental variables estimator show that renewable energy consumption improves environmental quality. Indeed, renewable energies have a significant negative influence on CO₂ emissions. This result is robust when using the ecological footprint as an indicator of environmental quality.

In terms of implications, governments in Sub-Saharan Africa need to pursue policies to encourage investment in the renewable energy sector. This will promote renewable energy consumption, change the structure of the energy mix in favour of renewable energy, improve environmental quality and effectively combat climate change.

The originality of this research in relation to the existing literature lies at several levels. Firstly, the analysis is carried out using a unified framework combining the environmental Kuznets curve and the environmental convergence hypotheses. Secondly, this research uses a very recent econometric method. Finally, environmental quality is measured using two indicators.

Sustainable development goals (SDGs) designed by the United Nations include ‘universal and equitable access to affordable, reliable and clean energy’ as one of the pathways to achieve a better and more sustainable future by 2030. Universal access to electricity, clean cooking fuel, increasing share of renewable resources and improving energy efficiency are the key components of SDG7. In India, the government has undertaken targeted programmes to ensure full electrification of households and greater use of liquid petroleum gas (LPG) for clean cooking replacing traditional solid biomass fuels in poor households. Installed capacity targets are set to raise the share of renewable resources in total energy mix along with the policies undertaken to make it cost-competitive (SDG India, 2019–2020). However, the economic crisis experienced by India during COVID-19 pandemic is likely to affect this ongoing drive towards clean energy use. Sudden fall in income and loss of employment particularly in the unorganised sector might have made the poor rural households vulnerable to reversion to their traditional cooking fuels. The renewable sector has also faced uncertainties due to halted construction works and disrupted global supply chains during lockdown. The present chapter discusses these pertinent issues crucial for achieving SDGs. It investigates how far the COVID-19-driven economic crisis has delayed India's clean cooking fuel programme for different states. It further examines the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on renewable energy sector, particularly on the solar energy sector. The study suggests some policy measures for a robust recovery, ensuring transition towards clean energy use and sustainable growth to protect the environment.

This empirical research intends to examine factors influencing the adoption of renewable energy (RE) using a conceptual model of the consumer decision-making process.

This study uses a primary response-based survey to collect data from 668 respondents interested in adopting RE for their daily usage. The sample respondents were chosen through a multi-stage random stratified technique. The responses were analyzed through structural equation-based modeling techniques to discuss the findings and suggest further implications.

The findings suggest that factors like knowledge, policy incentives, sustainable development goals (SDGs-7, 11 and 13), socio-economic benefits and risk perception significantly impact the adoption of RE. Besides, risk perception mediates between environmental concerns and the adoption of RE. Also, age has a significant role in RE adoption.

The study finds the critical role of government in introducing financial incentives to reduce the initial cost of renewable adoption. Doing so will also promote clean and equitable energy access to society leading to further fulfillment of SDGs. Additionally, steps like knowledge enrichment, designing suitable policies for a manufacturer and public-friendly renewable market development will further facilitate renewable adoption in society.

With an objective to study the public perception and attitude towards renewable adoption, this empirical research is the first of its kind to carry out a real-time survey of the Indian population and suggest policy implications which would benefit all the concerned stakeholders.