Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, cilt.20, sa.4, ss.4265-4280, 2023 (SCI-Expanded)
In compliance with the global climate goal, the European Cement Association adopted the 5C (clinker, cement, concrete, construction, and (re)carbonation) approach as its central roadmap to a carbon neutral 2050. Following the climate ambition at the center of Europe’s cement production, this study examines a suitable strategy for achieving environmental quality from the perspective of natural resources rent, energy utilization, trade, and income level in the panel of European Union member states over the period 1990–2016. The present study employed empirical method that demonstrated robustness to cross-sectional dependence and found statistically significant evidence of cointegration among the examined factors. Importantly, both the augmented mean group and method of moments quantile regression approaches found that carbon-related cement production emission could be mitigated by more drastic strategy toward energy transition, trade openness among in the region, and the sustainable natural resource rent policy. Although the carbon cement emission mitigations are all desirably inelastic with trade openness (~ 0.17), renewable energy utilization (~ 0.32), and natural resources rent (~ 0.12), these impacts become weaker in the upper quantile for renewable energy utilization and natural resource rent while becoming stronger in the upper quantile for trade openness. Additionally, the result from both estimations affirmed the environmental Kuznets curve for the carbon emission and income nexus scenario for the European Union countries. Moreover, the Granger causality evidence reveals two-way causation from carbon cement emission to trade openness, natural resource rent, and income per person. In general, the policy dimension from this study further re-engineers the 2050 carbon neutrality goal among the member states of European Union.