Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Renewable energy RD&D expenditure and CO 2 emissions in 15 European countries

Renewable energy RD&D expenditure and CO 2 emissions in 15 European countries Purpose – Renewable energy (RE) is an important component to the complex portfolio of technologies that have the potential to reduce CO 2 emissions and to enhance the security of energy supplies. Despite RE's potential to reduce CO 2 emissions, the expenditure on renewable energy research, development, and demonstration (RERD&D) as a percentage of total government energy research, development, and demonstration (ERD&D) investment remains low in developed countries. The declining ERD&D expenditure prompted this research to explore the relationship between CO 2 emissions per capita and RERD&D as opposed to ERD&D. Design/methodology/approach – An econometric analysis of annual CO 2 emissions per capita during the period 1990‐2004 for the 15 pre‐2004 European Union (EU15) countries was carried out. It was hypothesized that the impact of RERD&D expenditure on the reduction of CO 2 emissions would be higher than that of ERD&D expenditure, primarily due to several RE technologies being close to carbon neutral. Country‐level gross domestic product per capita and an index of the ratio between industry consumption and industrial production were introduced in the analysis as proxies to control for activities that generate CO 2 emissions. A number of panel data econometric models that are able to take into account both country‐ and time‐specific unobserved effects were explored. Findings – It was found that random effect models were more appropriate to examine the study hypothesis. The results suggest that expenditure on RERD&D is statistically significant and negatively associated with CO 2 emissions per capita in all models, whereas expenditure on ERD&D is statistically insignificant ( ceteris paribus ). Originality/value – The findings of this paper provide useful insight into the effectiveness of RERD&D investment in reducing CO 2 emissions and are of value in the development of policies for targeted research, development, and demonstration investment to mitigate the impacts of climate change. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png International Journal of Energy Sector Management Emerald Publishing

Renewable energy RD&D expenditure and CO 2 emissions in 15 European countries

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/renewable-energy-rd-d-expenditure-and-co-2-emissions-in-15-european-JXDzUxer0b

References (45)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 Emerald Group Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.
ISSN
1750-6220
DOI
10.1108/17506220910970588
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Purpose – Renewable energy (RE) is an important component to the complex portfolio of technologies that have the potential to reduce CO 2 emissions and to enhance the security of energy supplies. Despite RE's potential to reduce CO 2 emissions, the expenditure on renewable energy research, development, and demonstration (RERD&D) as a percentage of total government energy research, development, and demonstration (ERD&D) investment remains low in developed countries. The declining ERD&D expenditure prompted this research to explore the relationship between CO 2 emissions per capita and RERD&D as opposed to ERD&D. Design/methodology/approach – An econometric analysis of annual CO 2 emissions per capita during the period 1990‐2004 for the 15 pre‐2004 European Union (EU15) countries was carried out. It was hypothesized that the impact of RERD&D expenditure on the reduction of CO 2 emissions would be higher than that of ERD&D expenditure, primarily due to several RE technologies being close to carbon neutral. Country‐level gross domestic product per capita and an index of the ratio between industry consumption and industrial production were introduced in the analysis as proxies to control for activities that generate CO 2 emissions. A number of panel data econometric models that are able to take into account both country‐ and time‐specific unobserved effects were explored. Findings – It was found that random effect models were more appropriate to examine the study hypothesis. The results suggest that expenditure on RERD&D is statistically significant and negatively associated with CO 2 emissions per capita in all models, whereas expenditure on ERD&D is statistically insignificant ( ceteris paribus ). Originality/value – The findings of this paper provide useful insight into the effectiveness of RERD&D investment in reducing CO 2 emissions and are of value in the development of policies for targeted research, development, and demonstration investment to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Journal

International Journal of Energy Sector ManagementEmerald Publishing

Published: Jun 26, 2009

Keywords: Energy; Renewable energy; Econometrics; European Union

There are no references for this article.