Exploring the impact of innovation, renewable energy consumption, and income on CO2 emissions: new evidence from the BRICS economies

The study's main purpose is to investigate the complex interaction between innovation, renewable energy consumption, and CO2 emissions (CO(2)e), under the Kuznets curve framework, for BRICS economies from 1980 to 2016. The empirical estimates drwan from the CCEMG technique highlighted the heterogeneous role of innovation. The results indicated that innovation activities have failed to disrupt CO(2)e in China, India, Russia, and South Africa, except for Brazil. Second, the data showed that renewable energy consumption has mitigated CO(2)e in the BRICS panel, Russia, India, and China, excluding South Africa. Third, the existence of the EKC hypothesis was confirmed in all the BRICS economies, excluding India and South Africa. Fourth, the causality estimations reflected a two-way causality between innovation and CO(2)e; innovation and GDP per capita; innovation and renewable energy consumption; and between CO(2)e and income, thereby confirming the acceptance of income-led emission hypothesis in for BRICS economies, and vice versa.