Does the use of renewable energy sources mitigate CO2 emissions? A reassessment of the US evidence

Abstract

Previous research on the determinants of CO2 emissions has concluded that, although increasing nuclear energy consumption can help to mitigate emissions, increasing use of renewable energy sources is not effective in this regard. These studies, however, do not consider energy prices as a possible driver of energy demand (and hence of emissions) and we find that this omission and the choice of functional form materially alters the outcome in the US case. Specifically, our cointegration and Granger-causality test results indicate that CO2 emission levels are negatively related to the use of renewable energy, but are unrelated to nuclear energy consumption.