Environmental higher education, formal finance, energy security risk, and renewable energy investment in China: An aggregate and disaggregate analysis

China is currently the largest energy-consuming nation; however, its contribution to renewable energy investment (REI) is significant and warrants examination. Many studies have analyzed how various factors may contribute to REI. However, the roles of environmental higher education (EHE), formal finance (FF), and energy security risk (ESR) in determining REI has not been sufficiently investigated. This analysis is an effort to examine the nexus between EHE, FF, ESR, and REI in China at the aggregate and disaggregate levels from 1996 to 2022. This study employed the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) and quantile autoregressive distributed lag (QARDL) models. The results indicate FF, EHE, and ESR effectively stimulate long-run aggregate REI. However, at the disaggregate level, FF significantly escalates investments in solar, wind, geothermal, and hydro energies. At the same time, EHE promotes investments in solar, wind, and hydro energies, and ESRs cause investments in solar and wind energies to grow. The QARDL model confirmed that FF, EHE, and ESR promote REI across most quantiles in the long run. Therefore, it is recommended that policymakers integrate these factors into REI policies.