Assessing the Impact of Renewable Energy Transition on the Environmental Sustainability and Carbon Neutrality in China: Composite Index Approach

The world is racing towards carbon zero mid-century ambitions; and from China's perspective, everything depends on the pursuit of carbon neutrality to be done by renewable energy transmission and carbon emission efficiency. The research assesses the impact of adopting renewable energy in the course of attaining environmental sustainability and carbon neutrality in China, developing a composite index for CO2, CH4, and NO2 emissions. The study starts in 1965 and goes on up to 2022, covering basic trends, linkages, and benchmarks against international standards. The results show that the composite index of emissions in China has been trending downward. This is commensurate with increasing renewable energy adoption, a pointer to low-carbon growth. Benchmark analysis, however, shows that in some parameters, despite appreciable progress, China still lags behind international standards. The findings bring out the need for enhanced policy measures related to investing in renewable energy technologies, stricter emissions regulations, and promoting energy efficiency. Some of the limitationsfrom the inadequacy of the data to the challenges posed by methodologiesare recognized, and further research is set out in the future to explore more environmental indicators and regional differences within China