Abstract
Green finance is profoundly affecting the energy transition, and at the global level, renewable energy has entered a leapfrog development phase. Unlike the research object that existing studies focus on, this paper selects 53 countries and regions that have launched green finance businesses as research sample, and empirically assesses the effect of green finance on the development of renewable energy based on cross-country panel data spanning 2000 to 2021. The results show that renewable energy development is positively impacted by green finance, and the marginal impact of green finance is gradually growing as renewable energy development level improves; the contribution of green finance to renewable energy development holds only in developed countries, emerging economies, countries with high green financial development levels, and countries with strong environmental regulations, but not in relatively backward developing countries, countries with low green financial development levels, and countries with weak environmental regulations; sectors of renewable energy that rely more heavily on external financing are more likely to be promoted by green finance; green finance supports renewable energy development mainly through promoting investment in renewable energy fixed assets and innovation in technology of the sector. This study provides an empirical and theoretical basis for green finance to promote renewable energy development.
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Data availability
The datasets used during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Notes
Among the 53 countries and regions are the following: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bermuda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden Switzerland, Thailand, the Netherlands, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, the United States, Turkey, Vietnam.
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Hui Hou was responsible for the methodology, software, analysis, writing, review, and editing; Yuanyuan Wang was responsible for the resources, investigation, data curation, and analysis; Minglang Zhang was responsible for software, data collection, analysis, and review. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Hou, H., Wang, Y. & Zhang, M. Green finance drives renewable energy development: empirical evidence from 53 countries worldwide. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 80573–80590 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-28111-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-28111-w