Do energy diversification and green growth transition help to achieve the target of carbon neutrality? Testing the validity of the EKC hypothesis under the prism of green growth.

This study investigates the role of green growth with reference to Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), the impact of hydro-energy production and nonlinear impact of energy diversification towards the target of carbon neutrality in China, for the time period of 1990-2020. The Method of Moment Quantile Regression is applied and the result reveal different findings which have important policy implications. Firstly, green growth has a significant U-shaped relationship with carbon emission, indicating that when green growth increases, the rate of carbon emissions continues to decline up to a turning point and starts to increase thereafter. Secondly, energy diversification has inverted U-shaped relationship with carbon emissions, showing that when energy diversification increases the rate of carbon emission continues to increase up to the turning point and starts declining afterwards. Thirdly, hydro-energy production is regarded as a cause to increase the carbon emission meaning that it increases environmental degradation and hinders the way to achieve the target of carbon neutrality. The estimated results pave the way to implications for effective carbon neutrality policies in China.