Assessing the environmental impacts of renewable energy sources: A case study on air pollution and carbon emissions in China

This study investigates the impact of renewable and non-renewable energy sources on carbon emissions in the context of China's 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025). The plan emphasises a "Dual-control" strategy of simultaneously setting energy consumption limits and reducing energy intensity for GDP (gross domestic product) in order to meet the targets of the five-year plan. Using a comprehensive dataset of Chinese energy and macroeconomic information spanning from 1990 to 2022, we conduct a Granger causality analysis to explore the relationship between energy sources and the level of air pollution. Our findings reveal a unidirectional link, wherein renewable energy contributes to a reduction in air pollution,…