What are the shocks of climate change on clean energy investment: A diversified exploration

Abstract

Abstract Climate change may affect energy consumption and thus bring shocks to clean energy investment. By employing instrumental variable quantile regression model, this research investigates the effects of climate change on clean energy investment according to global panel data spanning a long period. In addition to the sample of all countries, we also carry out investigations of sub-samples for OECD and non-OECD countries to analyze whether there exists heterogeneity in development levels. Overall, we provide a diversified exploration on how climate change shocks impact clean energy investment. More specifically, we find that effects of climate change on clean energy investment vary significantly in countries with different levels of clean energy investment; i.e., climate change is likely to promote clean energy investment in countries whose clean investments are greater, and there exists significant heterogeneity in the subsamples. From these results, we offer policy implications such as carrying out differentiated clean energy plans based on the specific environment, implementing policies on clean energy, and copying the practices in some OECD countries that have high levels of clean energy investment.