In European countries, increasing the share of renewable energy by just 1% over the long term could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 9%, while a 1% increase in government spending on environmental protection could yield a reduction of nearly 7%. This is the conclusion reached by researchers from Parul University in India, Sunway University in Malaysia, and the University of Rwanda, who analyzed the impact of climate policies across 24 European countries over the period from 2000 to 2024.
European countries have been steadily tightening climate policies for several decades – introducing environmental taxes, increasing government spending on environmental protection, scaling up solar and wind energy deployment, and supporting the development of low-carbon technologies. However, until now it remained unclear which of these measures are truly most effective and whether they work uniformly across countries with different emission levels.
To investigate this, the researchers compared CO₂ emissions data with government spending on environmental protection, environmental tax levels, the share of renewables, the number of clean-technology patents, and the volume of low-carbon equipment trade. Unlike many previous studies, they assessed not only the individual effect of each factor, but also how their effectiveness changes over time and depends on a country’s emission level.
Calculations showed that the strongest factor in reducing emissions is renewable energy development, in particular a 1 percentage point increase in its share over the long term reduces emissions by 9.27%. Nearly the same effect is achieved by growth in clean-technology innovation amounting to 8.44%. The researchers measured this through the number of patents for new developments, such as more efficient solar panels, wind turbines, energy storage systems, and other low-carbon technologies. Government spending on environmental protection reduces emissions by almost 7%, environmental taxes by 3.32%, and low-carbon technology trade by 2.2%.
Importantly, the impact of these measures cannot be considered linear. For example, a 1% increase in the renewable share reduces CO₂ emissions by 9.27%, whereas a 1% decrease in renewables increases emissions by only 2%. A similar pattern was observed for the other climate policy measures.
The study also showed that the effectiveness of climate policy depends on a country’s initial emission level. The higher the carbon intensity of an economy, the greater the effect of environmental measures. For instance, among the group of European countries with the highest emissions, increasing government spending on environmental protection reduced emissions twice as much as in the group with the lowest emissions. A similar pattern was observed for environmental taxes.
The findings on low-carbon technology trade also proved unexpected. In countries with low and medium emissions, importing such equipment does indeed help reduce the economy’s carbon footprint. However, in the most carbon-intensive economies, this effect practically disappears. In the researchers’ view, the reason is that importing technologies alone is insufficient, what matters above all is creating conditions for their effective deployment. This requires skilled personnel, appropriate infrastructure, and a favorable regulatory environment.
