Islamic finance for SDG 7 achievement: a systematic assessment of renewable energy financing mechanisms

Due to the pressing need to attain sustainable development goal 7, global attention on addressing energy poverty has increased. Improving rural education has been recognized as a strategy to mitigate energy poverty in rural China. However, the presence of education inequality remains a substantial challenge to energy poverty alleviation and underexamined. Our research aims to evaluate rural energy poverty levels systematically and investigate the impact of education inequality on rural energy poverty. This study begins by employing a novel weighting approach to develop a comprehensive indicator system, which accurately measures the extent of energy poverty in rural China. Subsequently, a panel fixed-effects model is utilized to analyze the causal impact of education inequality on rural energy poverty. Furthermore, the study explores the heterogeneity and potential mechanisms of education inequality on rural energy poverty. Findings reveal a decline in rural energy poverty from 2005 to 2020, and the nature of energy poverty has substantially transformed, with a greater prominence of using unclean and unaffordable energy sources. Education inequality increases rural energy poverty and indirectly affects it by reducing the income of rural residents. The influence of education inequality on rural energy poverty exhibits heterogeneity in both time and region. Policy recommendations are proposed for mitigating energy poverty and promoting education equality in rural areas.

Marketisation and rural energy poverty: Evidence from provincial panel data in China

Rural energy poverty alleviation in OECD nations: An integrated analysis of renewable energy, green taxation, and the United Nations agenda 2030

Alleviating rural energy poverty and inequality in rural-urban energy accessibility is a panacea for rural economic development. Researchers and policymakers have underscored the importance of remittances in socio-economic development; however, the role of remittances on rural energy poverty and disparity in rural-urban energy access remains under-researched area. This study, therefore, investigates whether remittances contribute to enhance rural energy poverty and rural-urban inequality in energy access in 135 developing countries from 2000–2020. Evidence from cross-sectional and endogeneity-corrected results supports that international remittance inflow substantially reduces rural poverty and rural-urban inequality in energy access. The results also indicate that the effect of remittance on rural energy poverty and rural-urban inequality in energy access depends on the state of countries’ financial development and GDP per capita, indicating that remittances alleviate rural energy poverty and inequality in rural-urban energy accessibility in countries with higher access to credit and per capita GDP. We documented that these findings differ across income groups. The policy implications are discussed.

The enormous ensembles of energy resources have elevated Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) to a prominent position in the world energy scene as a leading region in forming a sustainable energy future. However, over half of the population in the region lives without electricity and less than 20% of the population has access to clean fuels. The excessive reliance on fossil fuels such as coal, kerosene, and solid biomass has implications for environmental outcomes in SSA. Nevertheless, the environmental impact of energy poverty from the SSA perspective remains an under‐explored terrain in the research landscape. In this context, to address the pressing challenges of energy poverty and environmental sustainability, this study aims to explore the threat energy poverty poses on the ecological footprints, focusing on “land‐use, carbon footprint, forestry resources, and fishing ground” across 35 SSA countries using disaggregated data covering the period 2000 and 2021. This study employs the novel Method of the Moments Quantile Regression following the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence and Technology model as the reference theoretical and analytical framework. The findings disclose heterogeneous effects of rural and urban energy poverty on ecological footprint items. When comparing the magnitudes, we found that rural energy poverty has a more detrimental impact on land‐use than urban energy poverty. Energy poverty is found to have no reliable power to explain the variation in carbon footprint and fishing ground. In the meantime, urban energy poverty exerts a positive effect on forestry resource sustainability. Surprisingly, population density is found to have a significant and desirable impact on land‐use. Based on the obtained results, numerous policy suggestions have been discussed along with some prospects for future research.

China’s rural areas have long struggled with inefficient energy use, leading to energy poverty and carbon emissions. Therefore, this study assessed rural energy poverty and explored its interaction with carbon emissions. We developed a comprehensive assessment system for energy poverty in rural China and evaluated rural energy poverty across 30 provinces from 2010 to 2021. The dynamic relationship between rural energy poverty and carbon emissions was analyzed using the system-generalized method of moments, while the causal relationships involving economic variables, energy poverty, and carbon emissions were investigated using the Dumitrescu-Hurlin causality test. The results showed that (1) the overall situation of energy poverty in rural China significantly improved from 2010 to 2021, although there was considerable variation across different provinces. There was a significant positive correlation between rural energy poverty and carbon dioxide emissions, with every 1% increase in energy poverty leading to a 0.0785% increase in carbon dioxide emissions. There was a bidirectional causal relationship between energy poverty and carbon dioxide emissions, indicating a feedback effect between the two. Finally, the impact of different dimensions of energy poverty on carbon emissions varied considerably, with the availability of energy services having the most significant influence on emissions.

Rural energy in all their dimensions, not only access, but also sources, supply, consumption, program management, project maintenance, control and evaluation has been a neglected area in national energy planning in developing countries. As a result, nearly two billion people all around the world lack access to commercial energy, particularly to electricity and clean cooking appliances. Poor people still depend on traditional sources of energy that are used inefficiently. The unplanned exploitation of local biomass resources, mainly for basic needs such as cooking, generates serious environmental problems. In this sense, women face hardship in the collection of biomass and exposure to smoke that adversely affect their health. Therefore, this study aims to explore rural energy policies through a systematic literature review about rural energy access as a problem to be solved by means of an adequate rural energy policy. The study tries to raise the general settings of rural energy access, their challenges, barriers, and alternatives for solution, especially through the consideration of rural energy policy as an alternative to achieve a sustainable solution for rural poverty. Besides, by organizing and collecting concepts, this review contributes to a better understanding of these topics and their general issues, particularly in Latin America. Considering the general context as an initial condition, and the universal energy access as the perfect condition, rural energy policy becomes the central strategy to ensure universal energy access in all rural areas, trying to transit from an initial to a perfect condition.Keywords: Rural energy policy, Rural energy access, Rural energy poverty, Rural electrification, Clean cooking alternatives.JEL Classifications: Q40, Q43, Q48, Q49, R10, R58DOI: https://doi.org/10.32479/ijeep.11268

It is of critical importance to address energy poverty in rural areas if inclusive prosperity is to be achieved. Digital finance offers new opportunities to alleviate energy poverty in these regions. However, previous studies have mainly focused on the impact of digital finance on poverty, neglecting research on its impact in rural areas and on specific forms of poverty. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating the impact of digital finance on rural energy poverty. The period 2011–2021 was selected as the observation period, with 31 provinces serving as the study objects. The fixed effects model was employed to investigate the impact of digital finance on rural energy poverty, while exploring the mediating effect. The results indicate that digital finance alleviates the level of rural energy poverty, and this conclusion remains valid following a series of robustness tests. Furthermore, digital finance can indirectly alleviate rural energy poverty through technological innovation and agricultural entrepreneurship activities. Further research indicates that the impact of digital finance on rural energy poverty is more pronounced in regions with abundant human capital, robust government intervention, and minimal urban–rural disparities. This study extends the theoretical support for digital finance to indirectly support rural energy to alleviate poverty. Likewise, this finding provides a new perspective for the government and relevant departments to improve the welfare of residents and alleviate rural energy poverty.

Rural China grapples with pervasive energy poverty. This study aims to measure China's rural energy poverty and propose early warning strategies. It establishes a rural energy relative poverty evaluation system based on four dimensions: energy service effectiveness, consumption cleanliness, management integrity, and development sustainability. Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process-Criteria Importance Though Intercriteria Correlation-Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution model, it calculates rural energy poverty indices for Chinese provinces, while ward cluster analysis sets regional and hierarchical early warning criteria. Findings indicate: (1) China's rural energy poverty index varies widely, with a low range of 0.49–0.52 and a high range above 0.65. The top 14 regions average a rural energy poverty index of 0.62. (2) Over 2015–2021, there is a 9.70% decrease in the index, indicating a general downward trend. While rural energy services' efficiency and management integrity improve, consumption cleanliness and development sustainability decline. (3) Spatially, energy poverty is higher in the west and north, notably lower in the east and south. The eastern coastal and central regions exhibit significantly lower poverty levels due to better economic foundations and leading energy transformations. (4) Nine provinces are red warning areas, witnessing declining sustainability but improving service effectiveness, consumption cleanliness, and management integrity. Weak links in energy poverty vary across regions in terms of service effectiveness, consumption cleanliness, management integrity, and development sustainability. This study enhances the rural energy poverty evaluation system and proposes regional, hierarchical, and phased early warning standards.

Primary healthcare is vital to achieving universal health coverage, as emphasized by Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG 3). However, energy poverty remains a critical yet overlooked barrier to the efficiency of primary healthcare services in rural China—precisely the focus of this study. It employs panel regression models and threshold analysis methods using data from 31 Chinese provinces for the period 2014–2021, sourced from the EPSDATA data platform. Robustness checks are performed using bootstrap procedures, accompanied by detailed mechanism analyses. The empirical results demonstrate that rural energy poverty significantly reduces primary healthcare efficiency, particularly in provinces initially characterized by lower healthcare performance. The mechanism analysis identifies four critical transmission channels—off-farm employment, internet intensity, food safety, and health education—through which rural energy poverty undermines healthcare outcomes. Furthermore, threshold regressions uncover nonlinear relationships, indicating that the negative impacts of rural energy poverty intensify when household medical expenditures exceed 10.9%, the old-age dependency ratio surpasses 22.61%, and the rural energy poverty index is higher than 0.641. In theoretical terms, this study identifies rural energy poverty as a critical determinant of primary healthcare efficiency, thereby addressing an important gap in the existing literature. At the policy level, the findings emphasize the necessity for integrated measures targeting both rural energy poverty and primary healthcare inefficiencies to achieve SDG 3 and sustainably promote equitable, high-quality healthcare access in rural China.

Renting-out land allows rural farmers to receive rent and reallocate household labor from farm work to more rewarding off-farm activities, leading to income generation and potentially reducing rural energy poverty. However, sparse literature focuses on investigating this association. This study addresses the gap by exploring four waves (2011, 2013, 2015, and 2018) of data collected by the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. We use two dichotomous variables, multidimensional energy poverty (MEP) and energy unaffordability, to capture energy poverty and consider a dichotomous variable representing whether farmers rent out their land as the key explanatory variable. The recursive bivariate probit model estimates the impact of renting-out land on energy poverty. We also investigate the association between renting-out land size and rural energy poverty. The conditional mixed process model captures the left-censored nature of renting-out land size, addresses its endogeneity issues, and regresses its impacts on MEP and energy unaffordability. Our results show that promoting farmers’ renting-out land and enlarging the renting-out land size are promising strategies to alleviate rural energy poverty. In particular, renting-out land significantly decreases the odds of being MEP and energy unaffordability by 12.6% and 22.0%, respectively. In addition, one more unit of land (i.e. mu) rented out can reduce the incidence of MEP and energy unaffordability by 17.3% and 15.3%, respectively. Our findings inspire stakeholders to realize their pursuit of rural energy poverty reduction. Political instruments should be manifested as promoting the adoption and the scale of renting-out land.

In the context of global warming, abnormal temperature is becoming more frequent and its various impacts are receiving increased attention, but the impact of abnormal temperature on rural energy poverty has received relatively little focus. This study examines the effects of abnormal temperature on rural energy poverty, utilizing the systematic generalized method of moments with data from 30 Chinese provinces from 2001 to 2020. Using a panel threshold model, we investigate how the urban–rural gap and the quality of rural housing interact with the relationship between abnormal temperature and rural energy poverty. Our findings suggest that abnormal temperature significantly increases rural energy poverty by 5.7%, and the impact of abnormal temperature on rural energy poverty is exacerbated by a greater urban–rural gap and lower quality of rural housing. This study yields several policy implications for achieving a coordinated and synergistic response to climate change and the eradication of energy poverty based on the promotion of balanced development.

While the determinants of energy poverty have been widely explored in the literature, the relationship between labour migration and energy poverty in rural Chinese households has received limited scholarly attention. This research empirically explores the relationship between labour migration and energy poverty using a two-way fixed-effects model based on data from the China Family Panel Studies in order to fully investigate the role of labour migration in the governance of rural energy poverty. The results of this study show that labour migration may significantly reduce rural household energy poverty. The mechanism analysis shows that labour migration can weaken the adverse effects of natural disasters and extreme weather on rural households’ energy poverty. Further analysis reveals that rural households with low-risk tolerance, such as those with a small social network, fewer liquid assets, no commercial insurance, and no pension insurance, are even more negatively impacted by labour migration in terms of energy poverty. Therefore, the government can support migrant workers in seeking employment outside their hometowns through vocational skills training, improve household livelihoods, enhance their resilience to risks, and appropriately increase energy subsidies to incentivize households to proactively upgrade their energy consumption.

This study examines how non-farm entrepreneurship influences rural household energy poverty and explores caste-based heterogeneities in outcomes in India. The study used different quasi-experimental econometric methods to analyse panel data from the waves 1 and 2 (2015 and 2018) of the Access to Clean Cooking Energy and Electricity Survey of States (ACCESS) in India. The overall results across all estimation methods show that households' engagement in non-fam entrepreneurship significantly contributes to a reduction in their energy poverty levels and the probability of being energy poor. The sizes of the reduction vary across the four castes (General Caste, Scheduled Tribe, Scheduled Caste, and Other Backward Caste). The energy poverty reducing effect of non-farm entrepreneurship is particularly high among members of the Scheduled Tribe. Further mediation analyses reveal that non-farm entrepreneurship potentially affects rural households' energy poverty through their accumulation of financial (savings) and durable assets which possibly enable them to access cleaner energy sources for lighting and cooking. We encourage governments to pay attention to policies that promote non-farm entrepreneurship which has the potential to enhance asset accumulation and reduce rural energy poverty in the process.

Rural energy poverty is a critical issue in the socio-economic system. New Quality Productivity (NQP), an economic paradigm emphasizing technological innovation, digital transformation, and high-quality energy transition, offers a potential pathway to mitigate this issue. However, the promotion and application of new quality productivity may exhibit significant temporal lag effects, making its short-term influence difficult to observe. This study develops a novel dynamic analytical framework by constructing a lag gray relational analysis model to empirically examine the lag effect of new quality productivity on rural energy poverty. This study evaluates the effects of specific NQP technologies, such as broadband penetration, energy efficiency adoption, technological innovation, and enterprise digitalization, on rural energy poverty. Results reveal that incorporating dynamic lag effects significantly can enhance the goodness-of-fit and explanatory power of the regression model, enabling a more accurate capture of the time-varying impact of new quality productivity on rural energy poverty. Specifically, a 1% increase in NQP leads to a 1.43% reduction in rural energy poverty in the lag period, with more pronounced effects observed in economically developed regions and those with initially lower levels of NQP. The findings provide a new perspective on the relationship between new quality productivity and rural energy poverty.