Recently, Fayyaz Ahmad research group from The School of Economics, Lanzhou University analyzed the impact of renewable energy on environmental pollution by using the Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) boundary test with unit roots of structural breaks and other testing methods in the context of booming industry in five northwestern provinces of China. Research showed that using renewable energy could reduce carbon dioxide emissions and the reducing number varied from provinces to provinces. The reducing number of carbon dioxide emissions of provinces like Gansu, Qinghai, Xinjiang was larger than Ningxia and Shaanxi. Whether in the short term or in the long run, the three variables, namely non-renewable energy, GDP, and transportation and environmental pollution in the five northwestern provinces were positively correlated. Besides, the impact of non-renewable energy on environmental pollution was more obvious than that of GDP growth on environmental pollution. Hence, cutting use of fossil fuels could significantly improve environmental quality in the five northwestern provinces of China.

The research findings titled “Looking for Asymmetries and Nonlinearities: The nexus between renewable energy and environmental degradation in the Northwestern provinces of China” was published in The Journal of Cleaner Production, an internationally renowned journal in the field of clean production.

The paper was completed by The School of Economics, LZU, with Dr. Fayyaz Ahmad as the first author and Associate Professor Su Lijuan as the corresponding author. Having been committed to the research of energy economy, environmental economy and trade integration of countries and regions along the Belt and Road, this research group led by Dr. Fayyaz Ahmad and associate professor Su lijuan bore a lot of fruits in recent year. A total of 20 papers had been published since 2018.

Journal of Cleaner Production is a regional Journal Citation Reports published by Elsevier and indexed by SCI. This journal focusing on clean production, environmental protection and sustainable development research, is a worldclass environmental management journal as well as a top journals of environmental science and ecology. It is among the TOP100 global journals of Google Scholar Metrics(GSM) and repeatedly ranks the first among Sustainable Development journals. In 2018, the average amount of reference index Citescore is $7.32, entering the top 4% of international journals in the General Environmental Science.