Special issue of International Conference on Economics, Energy and Environment (ICEEE’2020)

The life of human beings is closely tied to energy. To meet energy demand, fossil fuels are excessively consumed by societies, resulting in the increase in carbon emissions, which in turn cause climate change (Pizarro-Irizar et al. 2020). Thus, the decarbonization of the energy system is necessary to hedge global warming (Nikas et al. 2020). In this direction, it is rather vital to explore and progress the sustainable energy to decrease the damaging impacts on the environment (Neofytou et al. 2020). Renewable energy sources are a major contributor to this solution (Stavrakas, Papadelis, and Flamos 2019) and thus, bear great potential to lead the energy transition due to advances in related – low-cost now – technologies (Stavrakas and Flamos 2020). In particular, solar & wind energy can play a significant role in the shift from conventional to non-conventional energy production and consumption (Stavrakas, Kleanthis, and Flamos 2020), while they can affect several macroeconomics indicators (Nikas et al. 2019). Energy Sources, Part B: Economics, Planning and Policy therefore decided to publish a special issue on economics of energy and environment in cooperation with the conference ICEEE’2020. The paper by Senadjki et al. (2021) aims to investigate the role of knowledge and price value in affecting the adoption of solar system among Malaysian households, based on the unified theory of acceptance for the use of technology. Empirical results show that knowledge positively impacts the expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions. Furthermore, they find that the price value has a direct effect on performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions. Another paper that focuses on the solar system is Semelane et al. (2021) which uses a model to assess the economic impact of enhanced solar PV localization and further analyses scenarios for the enhanced solar PV local content requirements. The study reveals that its optimization has a positive influence on employment and the GDP. The paper by Altinoz and Dogan (2021) aims to investigate the impact of renewable energy consumption and the abundance of natural resources on carbon emissions for a panel of countries by using quantile regressions. Empirical results show that renewable energy consumption reduces emissions and its effect increases at higher quantiles. The impact of natural resource abundance on carbon emissions is negative at lower quantiles, but positive at other quantiles. The paper by Taskin et al. (2021) considers the relationship between weather anomalies, proxied by the Global Historical Surface Temperature Anomalies and futures prices of agricultural products, energy commodities, industrial, and precious metals. They suggest unidirectional causality from the temperature anomalies to commodity futures prices. The findings imply that global temperature anomalies impact the expectations about the agriculturaland energy-related economic activities, including the use of commercial and organic fertilizers and fossil fuel combustion, respectively. The paper by Kumar (2021) analyzes the demand-supply gap in ethanol industry along with Government’s initiatives, such as tax reforms, import policies, and expansion of ethanol production in the Indian context. The study evaluates viable ethanol prices in different scenarios and economic feasibility of second-generation ethanol projects by including and excluding the social cost of carbon. They suggest that favorable taxation policies are helpful, while ethanol import can only be a short-term measure to promote ethanol fuel blending. ENERGY SOURCES, PART B: ECONOMICS, PLANNING, AND POLICY 2021, VOL. 16, NO. 4, 301–302 https://doi.org/10.1080/15567249.2021. 1932378