Renewable energy and economic growth relationship under the oil reserve ownership: Evidence from panel VAR approach

This study aims to explore the relationship among economic growth, CO2 emissions, fossil fuels consumption, renewable energy consumption, foreign direct investments, and trade by taking into account countries with oil reserves (export groups) and countries without oil reserves (import group). The factors affecting CO2 emissions in countries with and without oil production have been investigated by using Panel VAR (PVAR) and Granger causality methods for the period of 1990–2015. In both country groups, growth positively affects CO2 emissions. While there is a negative relationship between CO2 emission and foreign direct investments in the oil importing country group, there is a positive relationship between CO2 and trade in the oil-exporting group. PVAR analysis results illustrate that the growth hypothesis is valid in both groups of countries. In addition, when both country group examined, the countries sacrifice their national income to reduce carbon emissions, which makes it difficult to reduce emissions in the world. According to the variance decomposition results, while the CO2 variable defines itself as 98% for oil importing countries, the second important variable that pollutes the air is GDP. In addition, the variables FDI, REN and FOSSIL affect air pollution by 4% over a 10-year period.