Renewable energy transition, urbanization, and environment nexus in the Middle East and North Africa: Cross-sectional dependence analyses

The renewable energy transition could support a clean environment in any region as per sustainable development goals. Thus, this paper aims to explore the impact of renewable energy transition on CO2 emissions in the fossil fuel-dependent 11 MENA economies from 2001 to 2023. For this purpose, the study employs novel cross-sectional dependence (CSD) techniques to find robust results. The results expose that income per capita positively influences emissions with a coefficient of 14.325. However, the square of income per capita reveals a negative connection with a coefficient of –0.765, which supports the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis. Moreover, urbanization increases emissions with a coefficient of 0.512. Contrariwise, the renewable energy transition mitigates emissions with a coefficient of –0.803. The study concludes that urbanization increases and renewable energy transition helps to mitigate emissions. Thus, the process of the renewable energy transition should be accelerated to further support environmental sustainability, and urbanization should be checked to reduce its environmental problems. Acknowledgment The authors extend their appreciation to Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University for funding this research work through the project number (PSAU/2024/02/31262). All utilized data for analysis are available at Mendeley Data (Mahmood, 2025).