FROM CRISIS TO CATALYST: INCREASING CARBON EMISSIONS AS AN IMPERATIVE FOR ACCELERATED RENEWABLE ENERGY INVESTMENT FOR CLIMATE MITIGATION

Abstract

This study investigates how increasing carbon emissions function as a structural imperative for accelerated renewable energy investment, interrogating the ‘crisis-to-catalyst’ dynamic across a comparative sample of twelve nations such as five developed and seven developing, over the period 2010 to 2024. The study was theoretically anchored on the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis, green growth theory, and the institutional theory of energy transition, which collectively frame the emissions-investment relationship as institutionally mediated rather than automatic. Adopting a positivist, quantitative, longitudinal design, the study draws on secondary data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the World Bank, and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), analysed through longitudinal trend analysis, Pearson correlation, and fixed-effects panel regression. Findings of the study reveal a pronounced global bifurcation; Denmark and Sweden achieved emission reductions of 48.0% and 42.7%, respectively, affirming that investment efficiency, not volume, determines decarbonisation outcomes, whilst Ghana (+121.2%), India (+70.0%), and Nigeria (+35.4%) recorded persistent emission escalation attributable to institutional deficits and chronic underinvestment. China’s ‘scale-investment decoupling anomaly’, wherein $2.03 trillion in renewable investment accompanied a 35.9% emission increase, challenges investment-centric decarbonisation narratives and establishes fossil fuel suppression as an indispensable co-condition. The study concludes that the catalytic potential of rising emissions is realised only under conditions of institutional coherence and adequate climate finance. The study recommended the legislative codification of fossil fuel phase-out timelines in developed economies and the substantial scaling of concessional climate finance by international financial institutions to bridge the structural investment gap constraining energy transition in the Global South.