Pathway to Sustainable Development in China: Assessing Education and Carbon Emissions Nexus

ABSTRACT China continues to fight against carbon dioxide emissions and their impact on the environment. Despite the country being challenged by high emissions due to its reliance on coal, China has put necessary recommendations in place to achieve net‐zereo carbon. In this regard, this current study explores the impact of China's level of education and renewable energy consumption on achieving sustainable development through carbon emissions mitigation. The study employs the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) and the Canonical Cointegration Regression (CCR) for the analysis. The results of the study have been grouped into two sections: first, education significantly improves sustainable development through carbon emissions mitigation. Secondly, the outcome of the levels of education estimation reveals that primary education negatively and significantly affects carbon emissions, while, surprisingly, secondary and tertiary education deteriorate environmental quality due to their positive impact on carbon emissions. Renewable energy consumption and quality education are instrumental in addressing carbon emissions and its impact on the environment.