A path towards carbon mitigation amidst economic policy uncertainty in BRICS: an advanced panel analysis

Continuing economic progress with less environmental damage and achieving a sustainable environment require switching from fossil fuels to green energy. However, alleviating environmental damage of growth has become a major challenge for BRICS where economic progress amidst rising urbanization pollutes the environment. In this context, the fight against climate change and actions towards environmental sustainability are greatly affected by rising economic policy uncertainty. Hence, this study assesses the role of green energy, urbanization, and economic growth in CO2 emissions in the presence of economic policy uncertainty in BRICS (excluding South Africa) from 1997 to 2020. The study used the cross-sectionally augmented auto-regressive distributive lag technique for revealing the short- and long-run effects of the analyzed variables on environmental quality. The empirical evidence suggested that the environmental Kuznets curve exists according to the recent framework of Narayan and Narayan Energy Policy 38:661-666, (2010) because even though economic growth increases CO2 emissions, its long-run effect is less than the short-run effect. Economic policy uncertainty boosts CO2 not only in the short-run but also in the long-run, evidencing that a sustainable environment requires decreasing the levels of policy uncertainty. For BRICS, switching towards green energy is a vital option to decrease environmental deterioration owing to the negative connection between green energy and CO2. The findings indicated that rapid urbanization is among the causes of high CO2. Furthermore, economic policy uncertainty influences both green energy and economic growth levels. Finally, policies are recommended to mitigate environmental deterioration.