Impact of renewable and non-renewable energy, trade openness, GDP, and urbanization on C02 emissions: a panel study of CEE countries

Purpose The growing concern over climate change mitigation has caught the interest of researchers to explore the impact of energy consumption and growth in income on CO2 emissions. This study aims to examine the effect of renewable and nonrenewable energy, trade openness, gross domestic product (GDP) and urbanization on CO2 emissions in Central and Eastern Europe. Design/methodology/approach This research uses panel data for 12 countries of Central and Eastern Europe from 1990 to 2020 and analyses how renewable and nonrenewable energy consumption, per capita GDP, trade openness and urbanization affect CO2 emissions using DF–generalized method of moments (GMM) and one-step system GMM methods. Findings The findings highlight that renewable energy consumption, per capita GDP and rapid urbanization have significant effects on CO2 emissions growth across the countries studied. Notably, the rise in renewable energy consumption has a more substantial impact on CO2 emissions growth compared to nonrenewable energy consumption. However, the study finds no significant evidence that nonrenewable energy is associated with reduced CO2 emissions growth. Thus, promoting renewable energy consumption could lead to a substantial reduction in CO2 emissions growth in these countries. Originality/value This study is the first attempt to evaluate the combined impact of renewable and nonrenewable energy, trade openness, GDP and urbanization on CO2 emissions in the context of Central and Eastern Europe.