Climate change is one of the most important global problems faced by the international community. It is generally believed that increasing the consumption of renewable energy is an effective measure to promote CO2 emissions reduction. Therefore, renewable energy consumption has become one of the best alternative strategies for sustainable development. Based on this, this paper employs the 3SLS model to conduct an empirical study on the relations among real output, renewable energy consumption, and CO2 emissions of BRICS countries (except Russia) in 1999–2014. The empirical results support, for BRICS group, the complete tri-variate relationships (energy-output-emission nexus), and renewable energy had a significant positive impact on the real output, and vice versa. Besides, compared with other countries, Brazil also has the same tri-variate relationships as BRICS group. However, China has no relationship from real output to renewable energy consumption and from real output to CO2 emissions; India does not have the relationship from real output to renewable energy consumption and the bilateral relationship between real output and CO2 emissions; the relationship between variables in South Africa only occurs in the energy output chain. Finally, according to the estimation results of the simultaneous equation, the BRICs governments should consider the importance of human capital level and financial development when controlling the real output level and pollution. In addition, it should be noted that effective energy policies help to reduce carbon dioxide emissions without compromising real output.

Since the reform and opening-up, China’s CO2 emissions have increased dramatically, and it has become the world’s largest CO2 emission and primary energy consumption country. The manufacturing industry is one of the biggest contributors to CO2 emission, and determining the drivers of CO2 emissions are essential for effective environmental policy. China is also a vast transition economy with great regional differences. Therefore, based on the data of China’s provincial panel from 2000 to 2013 and the improved STIRPAT model, this paper studies the impact of economic growth, foreign direct investment (FDI) and energy intensity on China’s manufacturing carbon emissions through the fixed-effect panel quantile regression model. The results show that the effects of economic growth, FDI and energy intensity on carbon emissions of the manufacturing industry are different in different levels and regions, and they have apparent heterogeneity. In particular, economic growth plays a decisive role in the CO2 emissions of the manufacturing industry. Economic growth has a positive impact on the carbon emissions of the manufacturing industry; specifically, a higher impact on high carbon emission provinces. Besides, FDI has a significant positive effect on the upper emission provinces of the manufacturing industry, which proves that there is a pollution paradise hypothesis in China’s manufacturing industry, but no halo effect hypothesis. The reduction of energy intensity does not have a positive effect on the reduction of carbon emissions. The higher impact of the energy intensity of upper emission provinces on carbon emissions from their manufacturing industry, shows that there is an energy rebound effect in China’s manufacturing industry. Finally, our study confirms that China’s manufacturing industry has considerable space for emission reduction. The results also provide policy recommendations for policymakers.

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