Sustainability Under Uncertainty: A Time‐Frequency Perspective on Brazil's Nuclear Energy Pathway, Digital Evolution, and Financial Risk Exposure

ABSTRACT Brazil faces a growing tension between accelerating economic development and preserving ecological sustainability, particularly amid rising energy demand, fiscal vulnerabilities, and rapid digital transformation. While nuclear energy, digitalization, financial stability, and economic growth are often discussed as critical levers for sustainable development, their environmental impacts remain poorly understood in Brazil's context, given the country's unique convergence of structural, environmental, and economic factors. Motivated by this gap, the present study provides the first empirical assessment of the impacts of nuclear energy, financial risk, digitalization, and economic growth on Brazil's ecological quality, measured through the load capacity factor for the period between 1999Q1 and 2021Q4. To achieve this, the study employs advanced econometric techniques including wavelet quantile regression, wavelet quantile correlation, quantile‐on‐quantile kernel regularised least squares, and quantile‐on‐quantile Granger causality. Results from the wavelet quantile regression method reveal that nuclear energy exerts a negative influence on ecological quality across most quantiles and time scales. Similarly, digitalization, financial risk, and economic growth contribute to environmental degradation across different periods and quantiles. These findings are reinforced by wavelet quantile correlation and quantile‐on‐quantile kernel regularised least squares, while the quantile‐on‐quantile Granger causality analysis confirms the predictive influence of each explanatory variable on environmental sustainability. The study concludes by offering targeted policy recommendations aimed at aligning Brazil's economic and technological advancement with long‐term environmental sustainability.

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