Renewable energy transition and environmental sustainability through economic complexity in BRICS countries: Fresh insights from novel Method of Moments Quantile regression

Amid rising socio-economic and environmental concerns across countries, it is imperative to keep on evolving and regularly adapting innovation and latest technologies. In the same pursuits, economic complexity demonstrates the sophistication of technology which is highly associated with environmental quality and renewable energy transition. Therefore, the present study is intended to explore the roles of economic complexity and renewable energy in pollution alleviation and precisely in alleviating carbon emissions in the BRICS countries. In doing so, this study applied novel Method of Moments Quantile regression using annual data from 1995 to 2018. The overall results produce emissions mitigating effects of economic complexity and renewable energy mainly at higher emissions quantiles. The interaction of both variables suggests that economic complexity leads to renewable energy transition, which reduce carbon emissions more pronouncedly. These results suggest that there is a need to strategize the pathway for the potential investments to be made in the sector of renewable energy along with the areas of technology, innovation, human resource development and R&D which eventually improve economic complexity and environmental sustainability.(c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.