Do technological innovations promote green growth in the European Union?

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The present study aims to investigate the impact of climate change technologies on green growth for a panel of overall European economies, Eastern, and Western European economies over 2000 to 2017. The study estimates the STIRPAT (stochastic impacts by regression on population, affluence, and technology) and IPAT (human impact, population, affluence, and technology) models with a particulate focus to address the issue of cross-sectional dependence and cross-sectional heterogeneity in the model by using Westerlund cointegration approach and fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) approach. After confirming the cointegration relationship, the findings indicate that in the case of IPAT model, energy-related climate change technology contributes towards green growth, while in case of STRIPAT model, environment-related budget tends to have favorable impact on green growth. However, other variables, such as transport and production-related climate change technologies along with energy consumption, tend to have negative impact on green growth. The findings are almost robust concerning Eastern and Western Europe. The findings indicate that renewable energy is pro-growth and thus the authorities concerned need to promote and encourage the use of renewable energy. In this regard, the role of public-private-partnership is important as well as policymakers need to allocate environment-related specific budget and extend exemption in taxes on the use of environment-friendly technologies. Renewable energy programs ensure an improved return on green growth, although costly to implement. Attention needs to be focused on technologies related to wind power, solar electricity, biogas for electricity and heat generation, and biofuels for transport from low initial levels. Thus, policymakers should focus on the positive impact of environmental regulations. Polluting industries should be taxed to adopt clean technologies and clean industries should be supported with tax exemption as an incentive. Moreover, the research and development (R&D) budget should be increased.