Analysis of Socioeconomic Linkages Responsible for Higher-Order Phenomena and Resiliency in Economy-Energy-Emission Systems: Case Study on India

Energy transition cannot be realized without realizing factors and linkages that cause higher-order phenomena to exist in macroeconomic systems (such as business cycles). Existing studies have been unsuccessful in explaining the real-world higher-order behavior and have not explained how socioeconomic systems attain resiliency after financial crises. In this study, a proposed system internalizing inflation, non-electric energy-use and electricity, and normalizing trade openness with energy imports in the nexus, was able to approximate higher-order behavior of the Indian 3E nexus with 96.2% accuracy from 1996 to 2020, much better than theorized systems. Furthermore, only the new proposed system held the intrinsic resiliency of the Indian 3E nexus after the 2008 financial crisis, due to the discovery of three statistically significant feedback loops, which could guide energy policy-making in India post-COVID-19. A cybernetic method explains how seemingly linear systems can replicate higher order behavior through differential delays among interlinked variables. The key policy for energy transition and security improvement in India post 2022 COVID-19 crisis relies on derived linkages from capital to inflation and inflation to fossil fuel imports.