The impact of renewable energy and geopolitical risk on economic growth

A large part of the world's energy needs are provided from fossil resources, which cause serious damage to the natural environment and all living things, and pose a danger to the natural balance of the world and future generations. The use of energy in many areas, from the use of energy in industry, mechanization, production to the use of daily household appliances, increases the need for energy intensively. In addition, countries that are inadequate in terms of energy resources lead to an increase in foreign dependency in energy needs, causing energy importing countries to direct a large part of their income to energy imports, which causes their economies to be negatively affected. With the evolution of technology day by day, renewable energy resources can be produced with reduced costs and high efficiency. The fact that renewable energy is environmentally friendly in terms of its structure by reducing environmental pollution in energy consumption, that it is produced from resources within the country by reducing foreign dependence in energy, and that its resources are infinite by being produced from the country's existing natural resources are extremely important both for the economies of the country and for the continuation of the world. The subject of this study is to analyze the impact of renewable energy and geopolitical risk on economic growth. Our aim is to reveal the impact of renewable energy production and geopolitical risk on economic growth in the period covering 1985-2023 with the help of both symmetric and asymmetric causality analyses for Turkey. In this context, according to the findings obtained within the scope of asymmetric causality analysis, it is concluded that a decrease in renewable energy production positively affects growth, a negative shock in renewable energy production increases geopolitical risk and finally a positive shock in geopolitical risk increases renewable energy production.