Carbon neutrality challenges in Belt and Road countries: what factors can contribute to CO₂ emissions mitigation?

As climate warming is intensifying, CO₂ emission reduction has aroused the great attention of many governments and scholars. Compared with traditional industrial times, the influencing system of CO₂ emission in modern society has taken great changes due to technological advancement, improvement in energy efficiency, and the popularity of the internet. But the current literature has not reached a consensus on this theme. Our study tends to investigate the nexus between international trade, international trade taxes, energy intensity, internet usage, renewable energy, and CO₂ emission while incorporating income levels by using the data from Belt and Road countries in the 2008-2020 period. For this purpose, we applied the unit root test, CSD, Granger causality test, AMG, CCMG, and CS-ARDL methods. The results show that energy efficiency, GDP, and internet use have significantly negative effects on CO₂ emission, while GDP has significant positive impacts on CO₂ emission. By classifying 65 countries along Belt and Road into four groups of low-income level, low-middle income level, upper-middle income level, and a high-income level, the regional heterogeneities of influencing factors of CO₂ emission is confirmed. Furthermore, this empirical study provides new insights to policymakers to reduce CO₂ emissions through technology innovation, international cooperation, and human capital investment without deteriorating economic growth.