Does the use of renewable energy sources mitigate CO₂ emissions? A reassessment of the US evidence

Previous research on the determinants of CO₂ emissions has concluded that, although increasing nuclear energy consumption can help to mitigate emissions, increasing use of renewable energy sources is not effective in this regard. These studies, however, do not consider energy prices as a possible driver of energy demand (and hence of emissions) and we find that this omission and the choice of functional form materially alters the outcome in the US case. Specifically, our cointegration and Granger-causality test results indicate that CO₂ emission levels are negatively related to the use of renewable energy, but are unrelated to nuclear energy consumption. - Highlights: • We model CO₂ emissions for the US within a VECM framework. • We find that increasing renewable energy consumption is effective at mitigating emissions. • However, increasing nuclear energy consumption is ineffective in this respect. • Both results contradict the findings of previous studies