Determinants of carbon dioxide emissions in France

This study investigates the dynamic link between fossil fuel (FF) consumption, renewable energy (RE) use, economic growth (EG), trade openness (TO), foreign direct investment (FDI), and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions in France using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach. The primary objective is to examine how energy structure and economic factors jointly impact France's environmental sustainability between 1980 and 2023. The results confirm a long-run cointegrating link among the variables. Quantitatively, a 1% increase in FF consumption results in a 0.68% rise in CO 2 emissions, while a 1% increase in RE consumption reduces emissions by 0.45%. Similarly, TO contributes to a 0.15% decline in emissions, indicating that global integration promotes cleaner production and technology transfer. Conversely, FDI increases emissions by 0.27%, implying that capital inflows are not yet fully aligned with France's green transition goals. Moreover, the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis is validated, indicating that emissions initially increase but later decrease as income levels rise. These findings highlight the dual challenge of sustaining economic progress while mitigating environmental degradation (ED). Policy recommendations emphasize accelerating the RE transition, promoting environmentally responsible FDI, and aligning trade and growth strategies with France’s long-term carbon neutrality objectives. • Relationship between FF, RE, GDP, TO, FDI, and CO2 in France. • The data is collected from 1980 to 2023. • The manuscript employs the ARDL method.