The impact of clean technology adoption on carbon emissions: A global perspective

Across the global environment, anthropogenic activities are intensifying greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to the extent that the global environment is at the risk of crossing the irreversible turning point, and to avoid the worst consequences, carbon emissions must halve by the year 2030. As countries in the global economy are grappling with measures to tackle the challenge, recent advances in clean technologies have emerged as potential tools the world could rely on to stabilize and achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. This has ignited a profound discourse on feasibility of the mitigating effect of these technologies in a global context. In this regard, the current study investigates the impact of clean technology on environmental sustainability in a global context. The study analyses the impact of clean technology adoption on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions within the framework of the standard Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis, using a panel of 190 countries representing the global economy, classified into developed countries and emerging-developing countries for comparative analysis over the period 2005-2020. The dynamic panel approach, system generalized method of moments (system GMM) econometric technique is employed. The results indicated that, renewable energy consumption, and access to clean fuels and technologies for cooking, proxy measures of clean technology have negative impact on CO2 emission in a global context and in developed and emerging-developing countries. Additionally, development level of countries does not have significant influence on the carbon mitigating effects of these technologies between developed and emerging-developing countries. Moreover, the study confirms validity of the EKC hypothesis within the scope of this investigation. The paper provides empirical evidence for the potential use of clean technologies in reducing carbon emissions and promoting universal green transformation of countries in the global economy. The findings have valuable implications for policymakers and offer useful policy recommendations. [GRAPHICS] .