Bibliometric Mapping of Renewable Energy, Carbon Emissions, and Sustainable Development: Evidence from VOSviewer Analysis

Abstract

Improving renewable energy deployment, cutting carbon emissions, and ensuring sustainable development are now interdependent policy goals in energy and environmental policy. This study aims to present a bibliometric mapping of the research on the intersection of renewable energy, carbon emissions and sustainable development through the literature found in Scopus database. Analysis is drawn from 1481 journal articles and reviews that were published from 2004 to 2024. Keyword co-occurrence, country co-authorship, bibliographic coupling of documents and sources, co-citation of cited references, bibliographic influence and author-level collaboration were analyzed by VOSviewer. From the keyword co-occurrence results three thematic clusters are identified: economic growth, environmental quality, sustainability policy; renewable energy systems and energy-transition technologies; carbon emissions, greenhouse gases, climate mitigation. The country co-authorship results have been very high in the area of research activity and collaboration in Pakistan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Taiwan, Iran, Spain, Lebanon. Source-level bibliographic coupling shows that five journals namely Environmental Science and Pollution Research, Renewable Energy, Resources Policy, Journal of Environmental Management, and Journal of Cleaner Production are central journals in this field. The results from co-citation analysis reveal that the literature has a solid foundation of knowledge rooted in empirical energy-environment-growth studies and panel econometric methods. Overall, the study shows that the focus from the technology-related renewable energy and emission studies has moved toward more holistic approaches in the field of carbon systems, environmental sustainability, green finance and sustainable economic transition. The results deliver a systematic knowledge map for the scholars, policy makers and readers of journals interested in research related to energy, environment and sustainability.