Submit to Sustainability Review for Sustainability Propose a Special Issue

Journal Browser

Global Energy Economics and Implications of Energy-Related Policies

Print Special Issue Flyer
Special Issue Editors
Special Issue Information
Keywords
Published Papers

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sustainability and Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 March 2023) | Viewed by 12066

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Kentaka Aruga

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Saitama University, Saitama 338-8570, Japan
Interests: oil market; natural gas market; coal market; energy transition; energy security; energy–environmental Kuznets curve; time series analysis; discrete choice experiment; altruistic consumption
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The importance of global energy economics is becoming more crucial for building effective energy policy to balance the increasing energy demand and supply while minimizing the energy-related CO2 emissions. As there are still a large number of people without access to electricity, it is expected that the amount of global energy consumption will continue to rise. Thus, if no energy policy is implemented to transition from fossil fuel energy toward renewable energy, the speed of environmental damages caused by greenhouse gas emissions will progress at an unprecedented pace.

This Special Edition hopes to collect studies that will help to understand the situation of the current energy policy in various countries and how they are striving to shift toward renewable energy or research analyzing energy markets to reveal their present conditions. The Special Issue also invites diverse topics related to global energy economics and implications of energy-related policies. Below are some of the potential topics that are related to the focus of this Special Issue:

Global/regional fossil fuel energy markets;
Global/regional renewable energy markets;
Electric vehicle adoption;
Energy policy and climate change;
Energy efficiency development;
Energy policy in developed and developing nations;
Energy policy in energy security;
Global/regional policies to reduce energy poverty;
Global/regional policies for combating the effects of COVID-19 on the energy sector.

Dr. Kentaka Aruga
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

energy economics
resource economics
energy policy
fossil fuel
renewable energy
climate change
energy security
energy poverty
energy transition
energy efficiency

Published Papers (5 papers)

Download All Papers

Research

20 pages, 940 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Investigating the Moderating Role of Political Factors on Internal Success Factors and Project Success: Empirical Evidence from Pakistan

by Muhammad Haris and Qing Yang

Sustainability 2023, 15(11), 8910; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15118910 - 31 May 2023

Viewed by 1508

Abstract

The global collective actions of countries are insufficient to meet the goals agreed upon under the Paris Agreement. On one hand, countries are trailing behind in meeting their renewable energy targets. On the other hand, the implementation of renewable energy projects is affected by the political, regulatory, and policy challenges faced by engineering, procurement, and construction firms. Such issues force project firms to overlook their best practices and cause delays in connecting renewable energy plants to the national grid. This study investigates the relationship between two key project-level critical success factors and the project success of renewable energy projects in Pakistan with the moderating role of political factors. Using a data set of 238 respondents and Smart PLS 4 to analyze the data set, the results confirm the positive impact of communication and organizational factors on a project’s success. The findings also indicate that political factors are a major bottleneck that weakens the capability of project organizations to implement renewable energy projects in Pakistan. The current line of inquiry has implications for the ability of governments to effectively manage the power generation sector and support the transition to renewable energy. It also has significant theoretical implications for environmental contingency theory in terms of the adaptation of project firms to the external environment. The study concludes that project firms in the renewable energy sector need to be aware of political forces in the external environment to not only minimize their impact but to also provide timely completion of projects within and beyond Pakistan. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Global Energy Economics and Implications of Energy-Related Policies)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

23 pages, 6494 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Dynamic Correlation and Volatility Spillover among Green Bonds, Clean Energy Stock, and Fossil Fuel Market

by Chaofeng Tang, Kentaka Aruga and Yi Hu

Sustainability 2023, 15(8), 6586; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15086586 - 13 Apr 2023

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1714

Abstract

This study employs mainly the Bayesian DCC-MGARCH model and frequency connectedness methods to respectively examine the dynamic correlation and volatility spillover among the green bond, clean energy, and fossil fuel markets using daily data from 30 June 2014 to 18 October 2021. Three findings arose from our results: First, the green bond market has a weak negative correlation with the fossil fuel (WTI oil, Brent oil, natural gas, heating oil, and gasoline) and clean energy markets, which means that green bonds play a critical hedging role against fossil fuel and clean energy. Second, the green bond and clean energy are net volatility receivers from WTI crude oil and heating oil for the short term, indicating that investors and policymakers need to pay attention to the WTI oil volatility spillover risk when promoting green bonds and clean energy. Third, the correlation and volatility spillover from WTI crude oil to green bonds and clean energy is stronger than that of Brent oil, which implies that investors and policymakers need to consider the price movements of WTI crude oil more than Brent oil when investing in the green bond market. In summary, our conclusion is that investors should be aware that green bond investing addresses the two-pronged investment strategy of (i) risk diversification and (ii) carbon mitigation. Thus, this study can provide essential information for energy investors and policymakers to achieve sustainable investment. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Global Energy Economics and Implications of Energy-Related Policies)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

17 pages, 943 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Does the Environmental Kuznets Curve Hold for Coal Consumption? Evidence from South and East Asian Countries

by Qaisar Shahzad and Kentaka Aruga

Sustainability 2023, 15(6), 5532; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15065532 - 21 Mar 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1799

Abstract

Coal consumption plays a key role in achieving sustainable growth, although it also leads to significant environmental degradation. This study examines the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) for coal consumption in South and East Asian countries from 1990 to 2020. We applied the augmented mean group (AMG) and common correlated mean group (CCEMG) estimators, which have several advantages over conventional panel techniques because it considers the endogeneity, slope heterogeneity, and cross-sectional dependency (CD). The study findings provide a comprehensive insight into the complex relationship between coal consumption and environmental degradation. The results show that EKC holds for coal consumption and reducing coal consumption is not enough to achieve environmental sustainability. The results also show that foreign investment and population positively impact coal consumption, while renewable energy negatively impacts coal consumption. This highlights that reducing coal consumption alone is not enough to reduce environmental degradation but there also needs to be a diversion of foreign investment inflow to the sustainable, environmentally friendly project. Furthermore, the share of renewable energy in total output is lower in South and East Asian countries, and it needs to be increased further. Furthermore, to promote renewable energy, foreign investment and population control may be necessary to achieve a sustainable environment while maintaining economic growth. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Global Energy Economics and Implications of Energy-Related Policies)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

22 pages, 3393 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Relationships among the Fossil Fuel and Financial Markets during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Bayesian DCC-MGARCH Models

by Chaofeng Tang and Kentaka Aruga

Sustainability 2022, 14(1), 51; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14010051 - 21 Dec 2021

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2704

Abstract

This study examined how the relationships among the fossil fuel, clean energy stock, gold, and Bitcoin markets have changed since the COVID-19 pandemic took place for hedging the price change risks in the fossil fuel markets. We applied the Bayesian Dynamic Conditional Correlation-Multivariate GARCH (DCC-MGARCH) models using US daily data from 2 January 2019 to 26 February 2021. Our results suggest that the fossil fuel (WTI crude oil and natural gas) and financial markets (clean energy stock, gold, and Bitcoin) generally had negative relationships in 2019 before the pandemic prevailed, but they became positive for a while in mid-2020, alternating between positive (0.8) and negative values (−0.8). As it is known that negative relationships are required among assets to hedge the risk of price changes, this implies that stakeholders need to be cautious in hedging the risk across the fossil fuel and financial markets when a crisis like COVID-19 occurs. However, our study also revealed that such negative relationships only lasted for three to six months, suggesting that the effects of the pandemic were short term and that stakeholders in the fossil fuel markets could cross hedge with the financial markets in the long term. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Global Energy Economics and Implications of Energy-Related Policies)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

13 pages, 1689 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Does Staying at Home during the COVID-19 Pandemic Help Reduce CO₂ Emissions?

by Kentaka Aruga, Md. Monirul Islam and Arifa Jannat

Sustainability 2021, 13(15), 8534; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13158534 - 30 Jul 2021

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3220

Abstract

Quarantining at home during the COVID-19 pandemic significantly restricted human mobility such as visits to parks, grocery stores, workplaces, retail places, and transit stations. In this research, we analyzed how the changes in human mobility during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, from February to April 2020 (i.e., between 17 February and 30 April 2020), affected the daily CO₂ emissions for countries having a high number of coronavirus cases at that time. Our daily time-series analyses indicated that when average hours spent at home increased, the amount of daily CO₂ emissions declined significantly. The findings suggest that for all three countries (the US, India, and France), a 1% increase in the average duration spent in residential areas reduced daily CO₂ emissions by 0.17 Mt, 0.10 Mt, and 0.01 Mt, respectively, during the first wave period. Thus, confining people into their homes contributes to cutting down CO₂ emissions remarkably. However, the study also reveals those activities such as visiting parks and going grocery shopping increase CO₂ emissions, suggesting that unnecessary human mobility is undesirable for the environment. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Global Energy Economics and Implications of Energy-Related Policies)

► Show Figures