An outlook on the development of renewable energy, policy measures to reshape the current energy mix, and how to achieve sustainable economic growth in the post COVID-19 era.

Currently, COVID-19 due to emergence of various variants shows no signs of slowing down and has affected every aspect of life with significant negative impact on economic and energy structures around the world. As a result, the governments around the world have introduced policy responses to help businesses and industrial units to overcome the consequences of compliance with COVID-19 strategies. Our analysis indicates that global energy sector is one of the most severely affected industries as energy price mechanisms, energy demand, and energy supply have shown great uncertainty under these unprecedented economic and social changes. In this regard, we provide brief overview of demand, supply, and pricing structure of energy products as well as policy mechanisms to provide better outlook about how industrial sector can cope with energy consumption in the post pandemic era. We further propose changes in the existing policy mechanisms so that transition towards renewable energy sources under different environmental agreements can be achieved. Moreover, as a reference, we outline major challenges and policy recommendations to ease energy transition from fossil fuels to environmental friendly energy mix.

A brief review of socio-economic and environmental impact of Covid-19.

In recent months, Covid-19 has caused significant global social and economic distress. Governments and health officials around the world have introduced mandatory preventive measures to combat Covid-19, i.e., hand sanitizers, gloves, and masks, which have contributed to large quantities of medical wastes. Social distancing and mandatory lockdown have also been put in place to protect people from Covid-19. This epidemic has caused severe demographic changes and unemployment, and economic activities have been shut down to save human lives. Transportation and travel industries are most severely hit as global tourism has fallen to almost zero in recent months; as a solution, economic institutes have introduced stimulus packages worth more than $6 trillion. However, restricted economic activities have also contributed towards a cleaner environment. However, environmental changes are not permanent, and the pollution level may rise again in the future. As a result, current research suggests that policymakers must introduce stringent environmental policies to promote clean energy.