The role of critical minerals' price changes on the nexus between power sector CO2 emissions and disaggregated level renewable energy generation in China

Abstract

Countries have been facing environmental problems in recent years, especially due to increasing energy demand. Therefore, resolving this challenge of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and moving to eco-friendly, sustainable, and cleaner energy sources has emerged as a major global concern. Accordingly, this research examines the nexus hip between clean electricity generation (EG) subcomponents and power sector CO2 (PCO2) emissions under the moderating role of critical minerals (CMs) prices and geopolitical risk (GPR) in China, which is the biggest economy in the world. In this vein, the study novel quantile-based approaches on data from 2nd January 2019 to 30th June 2025 uncover the daily varying effect. The empirical outcomes demonstrate that (i) EG from clean sources (i.e., hydro, solar, and wind) generally do not reduce PCO2 emissions on a daily basis in bivariate cases; (ii) price changes of CMs for each EG subtype present moderating effects, where there are reducing effects on PCO2 emissions across various quantiles; (iii) there are causal effects from EG subtypes and price changes of CMs to PCO2 emissions across almost all levels, with a few exceptions at lower and middle quantiles; (iv) the moderating role of price changes of CMs causes a weakening effect on the nexus between each EG subtype and PCO2 emissions; (v) These outcomes are robust based on an alternative approach. Thus, the study reveals that the nexus varies across EG subtypes and quantiles under the moderating effect of CM price changes. Accordingly, the study discusses policy options (e.g., ensuring a displacement in favor of renewable energy sources, focusing on hydro EG to decarbonize PCO2, providing various financial and fiscal incentives to stimulate further installation of renewable energy capacity, trying to ensure a price stability in CMs' market, prioritizing domestic market first) to decarbonize the Chinese power sector.