Insights from European nations on the spatial impacts of renewable energy sources on CO2 emissions

Previous studies ignore the geospatial dynamics effects between renewable energy (RE) and CO2 while assessing such impacts in European countries. Further, most wrongfully use RE its aggregated format rather than decomposing by components. This is important as not all sources share same characteristics. We fill these gaps literature investigating of various forms on emissions 36 countries from 2000 to 2018. Spatial econometric models have been used better understand results. A series indicative tests confirmed Durbin panel model inclusion spatial interaction models. Our results confirm Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis our sample. identify a positive significant effect economic growth (captured through GDP per capita), foreign direct investment, urbanization, intensity emissions. findings indicate that increasing well-established technologies geothermal hydropower lower However, with more advanced solar, wind, bioenergy either increase or no impact Increasing whole result reduction sample Moreover, suggest investment lowers local emissions, neighboring countries’ trade openness Lastly, we find solar generation adjacent whilst marginally.