Decarbonization pathways: the roles of foreign direct investments, governance, democracy, economic growth, and renewable energy transition

The Paris Agreement has united the global nations to embark on pathways to the decarbonization of their respective economies. However, the objective of achieving low-carbon growth is not as straightforward as it seems since the rapidly emerging and fossil fuel-dependent world economies are focused on expediting economic growth at the expense of poorer environmental consequences. Against this background, this study aims to explore the effects of foreign direct investments, governance, democracy, renewable energy use, and economic growth on carbon dioxide emissions in the context of the BRICS countries over the period from 2006 to 2017. The estimation strategy involved in this study specifically accounts for addressing the issues of cross-sectional dependency and slope heterogeneity in the data set utilized for…