Transport electrification depends on sustained innovation in the new energy vehicle industry, yet geopolitical instability can weaken the conditions under which firms invest in and commercialize new technologies. Using a 2012-2024 panel of Chinese listed firms in the new energy vehicle value chain, this study constructs a market-implied firm-level measure of geopolitical risk exposure from rolling asset-pricing regressions and examines its relationship with technological innovation. Higher exposure is associated with lower patent output, and the relationship remains robust across alternative measures, specifications, and sample definitions. Additional analyses identify two firm responses to geopolitical stress: greater concentration of supply-chain relationships and higher precautionary cash retention. The negative association is more pronounced for firms with greater structural vulnerability and weaker financial or organizational buffers. These findings suggest that policies for transport electrification should complement demand-side support with measures that preserve innovation finance, diversify access to critical inputs, and strengthen supply-chain resilience under external shocks.
Stringent climate policies (SCPs) are central to decarbonization, yet their distributive impacts on energy poverty (EP) and regional inequality remain contentious, especially under growing fragmentation and weaker policy coordination. This study investigates the impact of SCPs on EP in China, examining heterogeneity across policy instruments, mechanisms, and spatial contexts. Using more than 7000 subnational policies from 2007 to 2022, we construct a text-based SCP index and apply fixed-effects and spatial econometric models. The results show that SCPs are consistently associated with lower EP, with command-and-control instruments exhibiting particularly strong effects, partly through industrial upgrading. However, once spatial dependence is considered, the effects become more uneven: Spatial Durbin Models show that SCPs reduce EP within implementing provinces but increase EP pressure in neighbouring regions. Further evidence from polluting-firm entry suggests that stricter SCPs may discourage polluting activities locally while increasing their relative entry in nearby provinces, helping to explain the observed beggar-thy-neighbour pattern. Spatial effect decomposition shows that local gains are largely offset by cross-border spillovers, leading to a small and statistically insignificant total effect. We conclude that climate policy design should account for spatial externalities and regional burden sharing to ensure a just transition across regions.
Türkiye and South Korea initiated their nuclear energy programs in the late 1950s within a shared global context shaped by the peaceful atom movement, Cold War technological diffusion, and growing energy security concerns. Despite broadly similar starting points, their technological and operational trajectories subsequently diverged substantially. South Korea progressively developed domestic reactor-design, construction, and export capabilities, whereas Türkiye experienced repeated delays in commercial reactor deployment and continues to rely substantially on foreign technology and project implementation. Against this background, this study examines why the two countries followed different pathways in transforming imported nuclear technology into domestic technological and industrial capabilities. Using a structured comparative historical design combined with process tracing, the study examines institutional structures, policy continuity, procurement and implementation decisions, technological-learning mechanisms, and localization outcomes from the late 1950s to the present. The historical evidence suggests that South Korea's experience is consistent with the argument that stronger state capacity, coherent industrial policy, and long-term planning facilitated cumulative technological capability formation, whereas institutional discontinuity and greater reliance on foreign actors constrained capability accumulation in Türkiye. From a policy perspective, the comparison suggests that Türkiye and other nuclear newcomer countries seeking technological upgrading should complement reactor procurement with progressively sequenced mechanisms for technology transfer, domestic supplier qualification, workforce development, localization, and institutional learning.
Recent global events, including the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic and the intensification of geopolitical tensions, have reshaped energy market structures and renewed interest in the role of geopolitical risk in economic dynamics. In this context, natural gas has emerged as a pivotal component of the energy transition, while simultaneously becoming increasingly exposed to geopolitical disruptions. This paper investigates this context using a time–frequency framework based on wavelet techniques, employing monthly observations from January 1999 to July 2025. We analyze how these interactions evolve across different horizons and under changing global conditions. The results reveal a structurally asymmetric transmission mechanism. While the United States (US) gas market appears relatively insulated from geopolitical shocks in the short run, the European Union (EU) market exhibits a strong and persistent sensitivity, particularly at medium-term frequencies. Moreover, the analysis highlights a transatlantic price transmission pattern, with US gas prices systematically leading European prices, suggesting a hierarchical structure of global gas markets. At longer horizons, we uncover a feedback mechanism whereby energy prices themselves help shape geopolitical risk. These findings are consistent with the emergence of a more fragmented and geopolitically driven energy system, in which the interaction between energy markets and geopolitical risk is both time-varying and mutually reinforcing. From a policy perspective, the results underscore the relevance of the energy trilemma and highlight the need to incorporate geopolitical risk into energy and macroeconomic policy frameworks.
Whether geopolitical risk drives or impedes the clean energy transition is empirically contested. We examine the effect of country-specific geopolitical risk (GPR) on green hydrogen innovation using a balanced panel of 33 countries from 2000 to 2024, a multi-dimensional patent value outcome, and an instrumental variable strategy based on terrorism shocks. The results show that: (1) country-specific GPR is associated with substantially higher green hydrogen patent value, with the effect strongest on the market dimension of patent value; the response extends across all four hydrogen production pathways, but conditioning on carbon-market adoption reveals that without carbon pricing no pathway responds, while under carbon pricing the response concentrates almost exclusively in green hydrogen; (2) the effect varies across development status, energy-import dependence, and international cooperation, concentrating in Global South economies and absent among Advanced North economies that sit at a capacity ceiling; (3) threshold regressions on four conditioning variables reveal distinct non-linear moderating structures: governance amplifies the response monotonically, the policy ecosystem exhibits a critical-mass property with amplification concentrated above the upper threshold, human capital shows a pattern consistent with an interruption at intermediate endowments, and the response declines across the energy poverty distribution, turning negative among the six economies in our sample where deprivation is most severe. We report the human-capital and energy-poverty patterns as conditional regularities; the mechanisms behind them are not directly tested. These results provide an empirical foundation for designing hydrogen policies that internalize governance capacity, policy density, human-capital configuration, and the security of national energy provision.
Understanding the drivers of residential solar photovoltaic (PV) adoption is essential for designing effective energy transition policies. This paper analyzes the diffusion of rooftop PV systems in Brazil by distinguishing between innovation-driven and imitation-driven adoption processes. Using administrative data covering more than 5,000 municipalities, municipality-level innovation and imitation coefficients are estimated using the Bass diffusion model. In a second stage, cross-sectional regressions examine how socioeconomic conditions, electricity tariffs, urban structure, and solar resource availability shape heterogeneity in these diffusion dynamics. The results reveal substantial variation in local adoption regimes. Innovation is more strongly associated with income, education, and solar resource endowment, while imitation is primarily linked to urban density and local interaction effects. These findings suggest that economic incentives alone cannot fully explain PV diffusion, as social and spatial mechanisms play an important role once adoption begins. The results highlight the importance of accounting for local socioeconomic and spatial heterogeneity when designing policies to accelerate distributed solar deployment in emerging electricity markets.
The Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region has advanced regulations governing transmission expansion planning in the power sector and has been and continues to be the birthplace of numerous innovative experiences in this field. Even so, there are certain gaps in transmission planning practices that prevent these networks from expanding at the necessary pace. Criticalities arise in the form of bottlenecks in the queue of interconnection requests, rising congestions and a significant increase in renewable energy curtailment. This article presents a detailed analysis of transmission planning in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Guatemala, with a particular focus on regulatory aspects such as the organisation of the planning process and the socio-environmental licensing of transmission projects. This review was complemented and enriched through direct contact with public institutions and stakeholders in the five countries. This exercise allows us to identify gaps with respect to international best practices and put forward recommendations to improve planning efficiency and enable countries in the LAC region to fulfil its energy policy ambitions.
This study examines the association between Türkiye's Building Energy Performance Regulation (BEPR) and self-rated health, focusing on energy poverty as a potential transmission mechanism. Using nationally representative data from the 2006–2023 Turkish Income and Living Conditions Survey, we employ DID-based models that combine the timing of national BEPR implementation with differential pre-policy exposure to insulation-related heating vulnerability. The baseline difference in differences (DID) estimates BEPR-related differential changes over time, propensity score matching (PSM)-DID improves treatment–control comparability, and instrumental variable (IV)-DID is used as a complementary robustness check for potential endogeneity in exposure assignment. Mediation analysis examines four potential energy poverty channels: delayed utility bill payments, damp or deteriorated dwelling conditions, inadequate home heating, and high household energy expenditure burden. Moderation analysis investigates whether the BEPR-related health association varies by income, housing conditions, education, and age.The results suggest that BEPR exposure is positively associated with self-rated health. This association appears to operate mainly through improved indoor environmental conditions, particularly reductions in inadequate heating, dampness, and deteriorated housing. In contrast, the results do not show significant reductions in utility bill payment delays or high energy expenditure burden, suggesting that energy-related financial stress may persist despite improvements in housing quality. The BEPR-related association varies across income, housing, and regional groups, indicating that household resources and pre-existing housing conditions may shape how building performance regulation translates into health-related welfare. Overall, the findings suggest that BEPR may improve health-related welfare by reducing housing-related dimensions of energy poverty; however, complementary financial and implementation-oriented policies are needed to ensure more equitable gains.
Improving energy efficiency is an essential and urgent task for achieving high-quality economic development. Exploring the impact of the national green data center pilots on enterprise energy efficiency is highly important for advancing both the Digital China strategy and the “dual carbon” goals. Taking the national green data center pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment, this study employs a difference-in-differences (DID) model to examine the policy effect on enterprise energy efficiency and explore the underlying mechanisms. The results indicate that the construction of national green data centers significantly enhances enterprise energy efficiency, and this conclusion remains robust across a series of identification and robustness tests. Mechanism analysis reveals that the pilot policy primarily exerts “green empowerment” and “data empowerment” effects, improving energy efficiency through promoting green innovation and accelerating digital transformation. Heterogeneity analysis further shows that the positive effect of the pilot policy on enterprise energy efficiency is more pronounced for non-state-owned enterprises, non-high-pollution industries, high-tech industries, and enterprises in eastern China. The findings provide solid micro-level evidence for evaluating the national green data center pilot policy and offer theoretical and policy implications for enhancing enterprise energy efficiency.
This paper investigates the impact of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict on the relationship between commodity price volatility and sovereign risk in European economies. Focusing on key agricultural commodities (wheat, rapeseed, and maize) and energy commodities (oil, gas, and coal) we examine the situation in European crop exporting and producing countries: France, Germany, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechia, Italy, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Finland, and the United Kingdom. Our results reveal that the spillovers originate primarily from the sovereign risk, while commodities are mainly shock receivers. Since the conflict began, the contribution of gas spillovers has increased, while that of wheat, maize, and coal has decreased. Moreover, the transmission of risks from Central Europe and Finland has also intensified. Overall, the findings suggest that geopolitical tensions drive the spillover transmission of commodity-related risk across the European Union and the UK.
Passenger-transport decarbonisation raises distributional questions, but harmonised physical travel data by household group remain scarce. We attribute national mode-specific CO2 totals from a bottom-up transport model to 60 household-consumption cells in each of 21 EU Member States in 2015. WILIAM cells combine five income quintiles, two settlement-density categories and six household compositions, constructed in LOCOMOTION by statistical matching and reconciliation to 2015 national accounts. This is an accounting attribution, not a direct measurement of group-specific travel activity or technical efficiency.Within each country–mode, attributed-emission ratios and Ginis reproduce the corresponding WILIAM consumption metrics by construction; multimodal totals instead weight modal consumption by distinct attribution intensities. The official-population-weighted resident mean for the covered 21-country sample is 1507 kg CO2/person/year. Across countries, the median total Q5/Q1 is 2.75, compared with 4.44 for air and 2.59 for private transport. Median grouped Ginis are 0.322 for air, 0.176 for private transport, 0.184 for rail and 0.082 for bus CO2 attributed using road-passenger-service expenditure shares. A structured-scenario envelope gives a median national total Q5/Q1 of 1.57–4.76; it is not a confidence interval. Dense cells receive higher total and aviation attributions on average, whereas non-dense cells receive higher private attribution.The baseline identifies where transport CO2 totals are attributed and formulates testable hypotheses about aviation concentration, car dependence, heterogeneous adjustment and public-transport pricing. Its policy contribution is diagnostic and hypothesis-generating: it specifies where credible incidence models need greater resolution and which price, accessibility, behavioural and compensation mechanisms they should test.
This paper investigates the evolving structure of Research and Development (R&D) collaborations in the European hydrogen sector, using data from the Horizon 2020 program to reconstruct a dynamic network of interregional collaboration links. Although green hydrogen is increasingly viewed as a cornerstone of the EU’s decarbonization and energy resilience strategy, innovation capacity in this domain is not uniformly distributed across regions. We adopt a temporal network analysis perspective to uncover the mechanisms that hinder broader regional participation in green hydrogen innovation trajectories. Our analysis reveals an increasing centralization of collaborations around a limited number of regions. These regions attract a growing share of collaborations and progressively consolidate their central positions within the network. This tendency may widen territorial disparities in hydrogen innovation capacity, as the more central regions tend to be those that already have a higher share of green-hydrogen patenting, so that their lead in hydrogen innovation grows over time. Our work highlights the need for network-sensitive R&D policies that mitigate structural polarization in hydrogen collaboration networks. By supporting the inclusion of peripheral regions and promoting diversified partnerships, European policies can turn hydrogen ambitions into an opportunity for more balanced development.
Energy efficiency is a global priority, but investments in energy efficiency do not always deliver the expected benefits. This paper studies micro-irrigation systems (MIS), a technology thought to reduce the energy required for irrigation by as much as 70 percent. We installed individual meters to directly measure the energy consumption of several hundred farmers in Gujarat, India, and linked the meter data with survey data to yield a uniquely comprehensive view into energy use patterns in smallholder agriculture. We document two facts. One, energy use varies widely across farmers, and this variation is unexplained by factors such as farm area or village geography. Two, MIS users in our sample consume 30 to 40 percent more energy than non-users of MIS. This difference does not appear to be fully explained by observable differences across farmers nor by rebound effects, suggesting that the energy efficiency gains of MIS under real-world conditions may be disappointing. Our results highlight a need for increased attention to the details of implementation and further research into the actual benefits of resource-conserving technologies.
The development of hydrogen refueling stations (HRSs) and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs) is highly interdependent. This creates a coordination dilemma: an insufficient HRS network constrains HFCV adoption, while limited HFCV deployment in turn undermines the economic viability of HRSs. Local governments have implemented subsidy policies to mitigate this dilemma. However, subsidy intensities vary substantially across cities. To assess subsidy effectiveness, this study constructs a system dynamics model. Under different subsidy scenarios, the model simulates the evolution of HRSs and HFCVs and evaluates the economic viability of HRSs. Five major cities in Shandong Province, China, are selected as the case study. The results show that, compared with the business-as-usual scenario, increasing subsidy intensities does not necessarily improve the economic viability of HRSs and promote the growth of HFCVs and HRSs, suggesting the need for coordinated subsidy intensity portfolios for each city according to regional conditions. Furthermore, cities achieve performance improvements under different scenarios, while two scenarios yield favorable outcomes for all five cities. These two scenarios increase the intensity of HRS operation and HFCV purchase subsidies and keep the HRS construction subsidy at the baseline level, differing in whether the hydrogen production R&D subsidy intensity is increased. The study allows an understanding of the development of HRSs and HFCVs under various subsidy scenarios and helps to provide a reference for policymakers.
