Blessing or curse energy sustainability: how does climate change affect renewable energy consumption in China?

The utilization of renewable energy is closely linked to the attainment of sustainable development goals (SDGs). In the context of climate change, examining how climate change affects renewable energy consumption is crucial. In theory, climate change is expected to prompt governments to implement policies conducive to developing renewable energy, thereby increasing renewable energy consumption. Regarding the empirical research, we construct and measure the climate change index, policy response index, and renewable energy consumption index of 30 provinces (cities) in China from 2000 to 2021 and then test the relationships between the three variables using fixed effects and mediating effects models. The results show that (1) climate change significantly promotes renewable energy consumption, with stronger promotion observed in economically developed provinces (cities) (r_High=0.848 > r_Low=0.235) and heavily polluting enterprise-intensive provinces (cities) (r_Intensive=3.712 > r_Others=0.776); (2) the policy response has been proven to be a partial mediating effect of climate change on renewable energy consumption, with statistical significance at the 1% level; (3) in contrast to prior studies, we reveal that foreign direct investment (r=-30.449) and trade openness (r=-0.787) exert negative influences on China’s renewable energy consumption, whereas the total dependency ratio (r = 4.815) positively impacts China’s renewable energy consumption. China needs to address the regional disparities in the policy response to renewable energy development and should promote industrial restructuring, strengthen environmental supervision, and guide investments in renewable sectors.