Exploring the renewable energy-environmental sustainability pathways: what do the interplay of technological innovation, structural change, and urbanization portends for BRICS?

The pervasive environmental and life-threatening effects of global warming, attributable to be an ensuing impact of surging CO2 emissions have motivated the conveyance of numerous global climate treaties. Among many resolutions, the transition to clean energy has become a fundamental option identified as a pathway to salvage the environment for the current and future generations. Thus, this research inspects the impact of substantial role of renewable energy in BRICS sustainability pathways. The study's objectives endogenize the functional roles of technological innovation (TEC), nonrenewable energy (NREN), nuclear energy (NUC), service-value added (SERV), and urbanization (URB) from 1992 to 2019. The empirical evidence relies on second-generation methods to ascertain cross-sectional dependency (CSD), slope concerns, stationary test, and bootstrap Westerlund cointegration test, which affirmed the presence of CSD. The MMQR result finds that NREN, URB, and TEC induces carbon emissions. Conversely, REN, NUC, and SERV mitigate carbon emissions. The Dumitrescu-Hurlin causality test reveals unidirectional causality from NREN to CO2 emissions; REN to CO2 emissions; CO2 emissions to NUC, CO2 emissions to SERV, and CO2 emissions to URB. Meanwhile, a two-way causality impact is discovered between CO2 emissions and TEC. Based on empirical findings, policy implications that lead to sustainability of BRICS environment are formulated.