Environmental innovations are key enablers of transition towards greener economies. Despite their importance, empirical studies examining the effect of green technologies on CO₂ emissions are still limited. Using an autoregressive distributed-lag model (ARDL), we analyze the impact of environmental innovations, the consumption of renewable energies, GDP per capita, and degree of economic openness on CO₂ emissions for 15 European countries over 23 years. Our results indicate that, in the long-term, environmental innovations tend to lower CO₂ emissions, whereas in the short-term the observed effect is the opposite, suggesting the existence of a rebound effect. This study recommends introducing new policies that combine tools of environmental economics with those of ecological economy to integrate economic incentives with regulatory changes and encourage individuals to consume differently by favouring products and/or services with a less negative impact on the environment.

环境创新是向绿色经济过渡的关键推动力。尽管它们很重要，但检验绿色技术对CO ₂排放影响的经验研究仍然有限。使用自回归分布滞后模型（ARDL），我们分析了15个欧洲国家23年间环境创新，可再生能源的消耗，人均GDP和经济开放程度对CO ₂排放的影响。我们的结果表明，从长期来看，环境创新往往会降低CO ₂排放，而在短期内观察到的相反，表明存在反弹效应。本研究建议引入新政策，将环境经济学的工具与生态经济学的工具相结合，以将经济激励措施与监管变化相结合，并通过偏爱对环境负面影响较小的产品和/或服务来鼓励个人进行不同的消费。