The role of party polarization in renewable energy consumption: Fresh evidence across the EU countries

Abstract

The essential role of renewable energy in mitigating the negative consequences of climate change has led to a growing body of literature that has examined the determinants of renewable energy consumption. Most of the existing studies focused on the macroeconomic, environmental, institutional, and energy-related determinants of renewable energy consumption and neglected the potential role of partisan polarization. The adverse effects of party polarization have been well documented by the literature, but the impact of party polarization on renewable energy consumption has not been examined. To fill this existing gap, this study explicitly explores the association between renewable energy consumption and partisan polarization across 25 European Union countries, spanning the period 2003–2017. The findings document that party polarization is negatively associated with renewable energy consumption after accounting for an extensive set of macroeconomic, environmental, institutional, and energy-related determinants and the use of a different set of estimation methodologies. The paper's findings show another adverse effect of party polarization by demonstrating its negative impact on renewable energy consumption.