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Open research questions in Energy, Environment, Economic Growth

1,087 gap statements mined from Energy, Environment, Economic Growth papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 9,356 papers on the topic — drawn mostly from each paper's own stated research gap, future-work, challenge and limitation notes, and its abstract. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one.

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What the literature leaves open

  • Further research could investigate the source of the fuel-mix change. Additional studies could examine the relationship between carbon productivity and economic growth in other countries.

    Dating the Turn in Saudi Arabia’s Carbon Productivity: Structural-Break Evidence and the Vision 2030 Baseline · 2026 · DOI

  • The lack of understanding of when Saudi Arabia's carbon productivity changed direction and which macroeconomic channels account for that change.

    Dating the Turn in Saudi Arabia’s Carbon Productivity: Structural-Break Evidence and the Vision 2030 Baseline · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper also identifies a need for powerful analytical techniques to investigate this relationship.

    Ecological sustainability in Tunisia: assessing the impact of ICT and financial development under the novel hypothesis of load capacity curve · 2026 · DOI

  • Further research could examine the causal effects of energy policy on energy use and emissions. Future studies could investigate the long-run elasticities of energy demand and emissions. Additional research could explore the role of technological change in reducing energy intensity and emissions.

    Energy and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Intensities in Four Developed Economies · 2026 · DOI

  • The existing literature has examined many of the mechanisms separately. There is a need to distinguish energy intensity from per capita use and domestic emissions performance from the carbon content of trade. The study fills this gap by providing a transparent comparison of conditional annual associations and their sensitivity.

    Energy and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Intensities in Four Developed Economies · 2026 · DOI

  • The unresolved question is whether a digital market institution designed to circulate data can also become an instrument of joint pollution-carbon reduction. The institutional separation between air-pollution control and carbon mitigation creates a policy puzzle.

    Data Trading Platforms and Urban Joint Pollution–Carbon Burden: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from China · 2026 · DOI

  • The need to accurately reflect the CO2 emissions under different levels of economic development. The limitation of only selecting 31 provincial capitals as research objects.

    Spatial Network Analysis of CO2 Emissions in Major Cities in China: Regional Structures and Influencing Factors · 2025 · DOI

  • The lack of understanding of the spatial characteristics and influencing factors of CO2 emissions in China. The need for a city-scale CO2 emission correlation model to achieve nationwide and urban fine-scale research on CO2 emission spatial networks.

    Spatial Network Analysis of CO2 Emissions in Major Cities in China: Regional Structures and Influencing Factors · 2025 · DOI

  • The paper identifies infrastructure limits as a key challenge to DRS implementation. The study notes that public trust challenges are also a significant barrier to the system's success. The paper highlights the need to address waste management inefficiencies related to poor infrastructure, costs to retailers, and operational difficulties of the recycling system.

    Challenges in Transitioning to a Circular Economy: A Spatial Analysis of Socioeconomic Factors Affecting the Adoption of the Deposit-Return System · 2025 · DOI

  • It highlights the importance of critically interpreting overall Green Economy Index rankings, as a high total score may result from exceptional performance in one category offsetting shortcomings in others. The study notes the need for targeted interventions to address the implementation gap between environmental ambition and reality.

    A Multidimensional Assessment of CO2-Intensive Economies Through the Green Economy Index Framework · 2025 · DOI

  • The need to balance productivity gains with environmental preservation. The challenge of optimizing input usage for economic growth without increasing resource consumption.

    The Impact of Technological Innovations on Agricultural Productivity and Environmental Sustainability in China · 2024 · DOI

  • Economic inequality and resource depletion are significant obstacles to achieving economic sustainability. The lack of economic incentives for countries to transition to a circular, regenerative economy is a major challenge. The COVID-19 pandemic has postponed the attainment of the SDGs by a further decade, from 2030 to 2040.

    Economic Inclusion: Green Finance and the SDGs · 2024 · DOI

  • Further research could explore the relationship between new quality productivity and industrial structure in other countries or regions. Future studies could investigate the impact of environmental regulation on new quality productivity and industrial structure. Additional research could examine the role of knowledge and technology in promoting new quality productivity and industrial upgrading.

    New Quality Productivity and Industrial Structure in China: The Moderating Effect of Environmental Regulation · 2024 · DOI

  • There is a need to examine the impact of new quality productivity on China's industrial restructuring. The study aims to integrate environmental regulation to elucidate the interaction mechanisms among these factors.

    New Quality Productivity and Industrial Structure in China: The Moderating Effect of Environmental Regulation · 2024 · DOI

  • The study must also address the issue of non-stationarity in the data. The study needs to control for the impact of other variables on green economic growth, such as population and foreign direct investment.

    How Financial Inclusion and Green Innovation Promote Green Economic Growth in Developing Countries · 2024 · DOI

  • The study notes the need for digital skills to maximize what AI technologies can deliver.

    Exploring the Role of Artificial Intelligence in Achieving a Net Zero Carbon Economy in Emerging Economies: A Combination of PLS-SEM and fsQCA Approaches to Digital Inclusion and Climate Resilience · 2024 · DOI

  • The study examines the relationships between green finance, carbon emissions, and other explanatory variables. The study investigates whether expanded access to green finance contributes to the development of a more sustainable and less carbon-intensive metal production industry in South Africa.

    Green Finance and Carbon Emission Intensity in South Africa’s Metal Production Sector: Evidence from an ARDL Approach · 2026 · DOI

  • The relationship between education and economic growth was found to be insignificant in this study. Previous studies have not used the carbon intensity of human well-being as a measure of health and well-being.

    Exploring Sustainable Development and the SDGs 3, 4, and 8 Using the Carbon Intensity of Human Well-Being and Longitudinal Multilevel Modeling · 2025 · DOI

  • Further research could explore the effects of green technology and democracy on ecological footprint in other countries, - The study of socio-economic and technological factors influencing environmental outcomes could be…

    Green technology meets democracy: Assessing their interactive effects on ecological and material footprints in BRICS · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper identifies a gap in understanding the relationship between economic growth and environmental protection. The study aims to fill this gap by analyzing the impact of green technology and democracy on EF in BRICS countries.

    Green technology meets democracy: Assessing their interactive effects on ecological and material footprints in BRICS · 2026 · DOI

  • The study identifies a gap in the understanding of the relationship between air freight transportation and environmental degradation. The analysis aims to fill this gap by examining the impact of air freight transportation on environmental degradation within the framework of the Environmental Kuznets Curve.

    Air Freight Transport and Environmental Degradation: An Environmental Kuznets Curve Perspective · 2026 · DOI

  • The role of Taxes on Goods and Services on environmental quality remains underexplored - Substantial research has studied the environmental effects of carbon taxes, but not taxes on goods…

    Taxes on Goods and Services and the Ecological Footprint: The Role of Digitalization · 2026 · DOI

  • Survey-based methods reflecting people's individual life assessment may eventually deliver rich representations of wellbeing - Further research could consider relations of other aspects of SEM…

    Enjoying more years of good life while reducing resource use and emissions? A global panel analysis 1990–2019 · 2026 · DOI

  • Taiwan was excluded due to data gaps in several key indicators, - The analysis focused on 29 countries, each with annual CO2 emissions exceeding 200 million metric tons in 2022, - The study does not disentangle the predictive relevance of green transition drivers across heterogeneous country profiles beyond the introduced stratified Random Forest modeling and PCA…

    A Multidimensional Assessment of CO2-Intensive Economies Through the Green Economy Index Framework · 2025 · DOI

  • Conduct comparative studies across different countries to explore how varying sociopolitical environments affect technology integration in agriculture, - Incorporate more environmental variables and emerging technologies to provide a holistic understanding of the impacts of innovation on sustainability, - Perform longitudinal studies examining farmers' attitudes and decision-making processes in response to changing…

    The Impact of Technological Innovations on Agricultural Productivity and Environmental Sustainability in China · 2024 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Energy, Environment, Economic Growth

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Open questions raised by papers listed on this page include: (1) Further research could investigate the source of the fuel-mix change (“Dating the Turn in Saudi Arabia’s Carbon Productivity: Structural-Break…”, 2026); (2) Further research could examine the causal effects of energy policy on energy use and emissions (“Energy and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Intensities in Four Developed Economies”, 2026); (3) The lack of understanding of the spatial characteristics and influencing factors of CO2 emissions in China (“Spatial Network Analysis of CO2 Emissions in Major Cities in China: Regional…”, 2025); (4) The lack of economic incentives for countries to transition to a circular, regenerative economy is a major challenge (“Economic Inclusion: Green Finance and the SDGs”, 2024); (5) Further research could explore the relationship between new quality productivity and industrial structure in other countries or regions (“New Quality Productivity and Industrial Structure in China: The Moderating…”, 2024). 1,087 gap statements have been mined from Energy, Environment, Economic Growth papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 9,356 papers on the topic; the gaps come from whichever of those papers state one. They are mostly the research gaps the authors state and the papers' abstracts, plus future-work, limitations and challenges passages. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one, so you can read the original claim in context.

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