Oil Shocks, Renewable Energy, and Growth Regimes in Algeria: A Multiple-Threshold NARDL Analysis of CO₂ Emissions

This study employs the MT-NARDL model to examine the nonlinear relationship between economic growth, oil prices, renewable energy consumption, and CO₂ emissions in Algeria over 1980–2024. Allowing GDP per capita to switch across low, medium, and high regimes, the model captures asymmetric short- and long-run responses. The Environmental Kuznets Curve is rejected: no regime yields a significant long-run effect on emissions, evidencing the absence of an automatic decoupling threshold. Renewable energy is the only robust driver of permanent carbon reduction, cutting emissions by 0.155% for each additional 1% share, despite an initial “brown-build” uptick. Oil-price shocks exert merely transitory impacts, whereas medium-growth episodes re-ignite emissions after two years. Error-correction is rapid, yet hydrocarbon dependency persists. Aligning development with climate goals, therefore, requires a coherent policy package that couples accelerated clean-energy deployment, stringent efficiency standards, and economic diversification away from carbon-intensive sectors. By foregrounding regime-dependent asymmetries, the paper offers new empirical evidence for resource-rich economies.