Unveiling the green horizon: A bibliometric analysis of global foreign direct investment research and its emphasis on climate change

Foreign direct investment (FDI) promotes economic growth of a country in multiple ways by setting up industries, infrastructure, and power plants, and such activities usually accelerate climate change by raising greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions. While the research on the role of FDI in promoting economic growth has gained widespread attention, it remains largely unclear how much global FDI research focuses on climate change activities. To fill this gap, a global scale bibliometric analysis was conducted to quantify published research on FDI, including the share dedicated to climate change. Global FDI research was heavily focused on non-climate change issues contributing 85% share in publications (13,835 publications) and 78% in citations (3,70,000 citations) and minimal attention was paid to FDI research relevant to climate change (2438 publications, 1,07,478 citations). Even with less publications, the research impact (RI; citations pre document) of FDI-climate change studies was 62% higher than non-climate change studies. Global FDI research was mainly concentrated in a few countries, with only 15 countries publishing approximately 75% of FDI research. China, USA, and UK combined produced approximately half (47%) of the global FDI research. The institutions and funding agencies from China, USA, and UK contributed greatest number of FDI publications and collaborated widely with rest of the world. However, China, Pakistan and Turkey produced 57% of global publications on FDI-climate change. Though developing countries are the major recipients of FDI and are most vulnerable to climate change, but their contributions towards climate change research were minimal. The most recent (2019–2023) topic trends for FDI research were green finance, renewable energy, economic growth, trade, and FDI. However, the recent topic trends for FDI-climate change research were green finance, clean energy, FDI, carbon emission, and carbon dioxide emission. FDI and climate change activities are generally positively correlated. Therefore, global research should upsurge its focus on FDI related climate change activities in order to find ways to improve economies sustainably without damaging environment. •We quantified global foreign direct investment (FDI) research and its focus on climate change.•FDI research has shown minimal emphasis on climate change (< 15% share in publications).•Majority (70%) of FDI research is produced by only 15 countries.•A significant portion (60%) of FD