FOSSIL FUEL, RENEWABLE ENERGY AND EMISSIONS RELATIONSHIP IN SELECTED EUROPEAN COUNTRIES: EVIDENCE FROM A DYNAMIC CCE ESTIMATION

: Over recent decades many European countries have been at the forefront of global renewable energyagendas with the challenge of increasing the use of renewable energy sources to fulfil their growing needswhile at the same time grappling with the issue of decreasing greenhouse gas emissions to reach the target of40% reduction by 2030 (IRENA). Despite the deployment of renewable energy programs, most Europeancountries remain highly dependent on imported fossil fuels, in 2014, oil accounted for almost 87.4% of totalEuropean countries imports, followed by natural gas (67.2%) and solid fuels such as coal (45.6%)(Bioenergy Europe, statistical report, 2017). Given this European energy picture, it is highly expected thatthere will be strong interactions between renewable energy consumption, fossil fuel consumption andemissions. However, it is important to clearly understand how these schemes will interact in order to preparea successful energy transition program. Therefore, it is the aim of this research to provide readers betterunderstanding of how renewable energy, fossil fuel and emissions interacts in Europe. Specifically, the aimof this study is to analyze the importance of renewable and nonrenewable energy components in the carbonabatement policy in 19 selected European countries over the period 1990-2014. It also seeks to explore thekey drivers of renewable energy consumption in Europe. Our main findings can be summarized as: (i) fossilfuel consumption increases emissions while renewable energy consumption decreases emissions in Europe,(ii) ecological footprint is a main driver of renewable energy consumption in Europe, while carbonemissions, oil consumption and coal consumption exert a negative influence on renewable energyconsumption. Eventually, this paper suggests some policy proposals related to the increasing consumption ofrenewable energy and energy security in Europe