The Critical Role of Education and ICT in Promoting Environmental Sustainability in Eastern and Southern Africa: A Panel VAR Approach (original) (raw)
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European Scientific Journal, ESJ
This paper focuses on using time series data on real GDP, energy consumption, and CO2 emission to examine the effect of economic growth and energy consumption on CO2 emission for a panel of 23 African countries within the period 1980–2019. The study used Pedroni (1999) approach of panel cointegration analysis to test for existence of long-run cointegration relationship between the variables. Fixed effect model was used to test for the Environmental Kutznets Hypothesis, and income squared was included as an additional explanatory variable. The estimated empirical results for the panel of 23 African countries from fixed effect model indicates the evidence of EKC hypothesis. At the level of individual countries, there is large divergence. 13 countries show evidence of EKC, implying that CO2 emission has fallen over the long run. As income increases, the levels of environmental damage decreases in those countries. 10 countries show opposite relationship among the variables. Based on t...
Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 2020
This study examines the effects of electricity consumption, financial development, economic growth, trade and ICT on CO 2 emissions in the fast-emerging countries, excluding Russia due to the unavailability of data. Cross-sectional dependency was identified using the Pesaran (2004) and Breusch and Pagan CD tests from Breusch and Pagan (1980) using annual data from 1993 to 2014 based on data availability. The second-generation panel unit root test was applied to investigate the integration order of the series. The long-run relationship among the variables was confirmed using second-generation panel cointegration techniques, which take cross-sectional dependency into account. Additionally, this study utilized the FMOLS, DOLS and robust least square estimators to determine the long-run coefficients. The results suggested that electricity usage and financial development have a positive and significant impact, while economic growth and trade have a negative and significant impact on CO 2 emissions. Additionally, an inverted U-shaped relationship between ICT and CO 2 emission was confirmed. This implies that pollution declines after attaining a threshold point as the ICT usage increases. Furthermore, the Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) heterogeneous panel causality test suggested that there is a unidirectional causal relationship between electricity consumption and CO 2 emissions, CO 2 emissions and ICT, gross domestic product and CO 2 emissions. Another unidirectional causality exists between financial development and CO 2 emissions. The study suggests that renewable energy sources can be adopted to decrease carbon emissions and to promote clean energy. Financial development needs to be further strengthened to promote the use of ecofriendly ICT products.
ECONOMIC GROWTH AND CARBON EMISSIONS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN KENYA AND SOUTH AFRICA 4
Economic studies, 2024
This study is a comparative analysis of Kenya and South Africa, the largest economies in Eastern and Southern Africa respectively, based on gross domestic product (GDP), energy use and carbon emissions. This study investigates the contribution of economic growth and renewable energy use on greenhouse carbon dioxide emissions in both country-level and group data, to observe their possible impact on environmental pollution. The present study addresses United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 13, to combat climate change and its impacts. To this end, this study is conducted in Kenya and South Africa using secondary data for the period 1990-2022. As an econometric strategy, we adopt the use of both panel and time series over the highlighted countries. The study employed an ARDL and PMG panel estimation approach to analyze the long-run relationship while Granger causality was conducted to confirm the short-run relationship between study variables. The empirical results show that economic growth and energy use significantly increase carbon emissions in South Africa, Kenya and aggregate data. Moreover, changes in industrial structure and urbanization have a mixed influence on carbon emissions in all models. Furthermore, short-run causality results point to a unidirectional relationship running from economic growth to carbon emissions in Kenya. In contrast, for South Africa, causality runs from carbon emissions to growth. In addition, for panel analysis, the study confirmed a bidirectional relationship. In conclusion, this comparative case study shows that countries with substantial growth in GDP and intensive energy use have high carbon emissions. Given these, the positive relationship poses a dilemma for Kenya and South Africa in their drive to achieve growth and at the same time manage environmental pollution. The empirical findings of this study imply that these countries should take all possible policy actions such as the massive investment and deployment of renewable energy, shifting gradually from non-renewable energy sources to renewable sources, a range of renewable energy sources, especially those that don't generate greenhouse gases, are needed, the use of climate finance to transition to clean
Given the acceleration of economic changes in Sub-Saharan Africa economies (SSA), a better understanding of the relationship between economic growth and pollution is essential for policy makers. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of economic, financial and institutional developments on CO 2 emissions for 25 SSA countries over the period 1996e2010. We use the reduced form modeling to control unobserved heterogeneity specific to countries and the GMM dynamic panel method to control endogeneity. We found no-evidence in our investigation for the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. Indeed, a monotonically increasing relationship with GDP is found more appropriate for CO 2 emissions. The results confirm that political stability, government effectiveness, democracy, and control of corruption influence negatively CO 2 emissions. On the contrary, regulatory quality and rule of law have a positive effect on CO 2 emissions. The results confirm the importance of institutional frameworks in reducing carbon dioxide emissions since institutional quality not only affects carbon dioxide emissions directly, but also indirectly via economic growth and trade openness.
Frontiers in Environmental Science, 2024
Carbon emissions from anthropogenic human activities are viewed as the major cause of pollution in the environment. The Paris Treaty came into effect to help minimize the galloping rate of global ecological pollution. The surge in global emissions has prompted other nations to change their environmental regulations to help them to attain their emission mitigation agenda. For instance, China, United States and India have improved their Nationally Determined Contributions they pledged as signatories to the Paris Accord to help them to achieve their sustainable development goals But, despite nations committing to the guidelines of this accord, ecological contamination continues to rise in the globe. To help curb the above menace, a study on the connection between financial development, urbanization, economic growth, renewable energy consumption, and environmental quality of 27 countries from North, South and East Africa over the period 1990 to 2019 was conducted. In attaining this goal, econometric techniques that are robust to heterogeneity and residual cross-sectional dependence were deemed appropriate. From the preliminary analysis, the panel was heterogeneous and cross-sectionally dependent. Also, all the series were stationary after first difference and cointegrated in the long-run. On the regression estimates via the common correlated effects mean group technique, financial development improved environmental quality in the North, South and Eastern regions by 0.56%, 0.42%, and 0.44% respectively. Also,
Environmental Science and Pollution Research
The relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution continues to attract significant research interest for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers all over the globe. Theoretically, the environmental benefit of economic growth should be greater than its negative externality with higher level of development. However, from the African perspective, countries with higher economic performances often face several environmental challenges, which raises the doubt whether economic growth helps or constrains environmental quality improvement. Under the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis, this study re-examined the effect of economic growth on CO2 emissions conditional on the dynamics of urbanization, renewable energy, and good governance across 47 African countries using panel data from 1996 to 2019. We employ panel cointegration tests to establish whether there is a long-run equilibrium relationship among our variables. We also apply pooled mean group ARDL (PM...
Financial Development, Human Capital Development and Climate Change in East and Southern Africa
Forthcoming: Environmental Science and Pollution Research , 2021
Africa is currently experiencing both financial and human development challenges. While several continents have advocated for financial development in order to acquire environmentally friendly machinery that produces less emissions and ensures long-term sustainability, Africa is still lagging behind the rest of the world. Similarly, Africa's human development has remained stagnant, posing a serious threat to climate change if not addressed. Building on the underpinnings of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis on the nexus between economic growth and environmental pollution, this study contributes to empirical research seeking to promote environmental sustainability as follows. First, it investigates the link between financial development, human capital development and climate change in East and Southern Africa. Second, six advanced panel techniquesare used, and they include: (1) cross-sectional dependency (CD) tests; (2) combined panel unit root tests; (3) combined panel cointegration tests; (4) panel VAR/VEC Granger causality tests and (5) combined variance decomposition analysis based on Cholesky and Generalised weights. Our finding shows that financial and human capital developments are important in reducing CO2 emissions and promoting environmental sustainability in East and Southern Africa.
Impact of economic growth on carbon emissions in selected West African countries, 1980-2019
Journal of Money and Business, 2021
Purpose-This study investigated the impact of economic growth on carbon emissions on selected West African countries between 1980 and 2019. Simon-Steinmann's economic growth model provides the relevant theoretical foundation. The main objective of this study was to ascertain whether economic growth will impact carbon emissions. Design/methodology/approach-The study selected six-sample countries in West Africa and used secondary data obtained through the World Bank Group online database covering the period 1980-2019, employing panel econometric methods of statistical analysis. Findings-The outcome indicates that the independent variable showed a positively significant impact on the dependent variable for the pooled samples in the short-run, with significant cointegration. Research limitations/implications-The study concluded that economic growth significantly impacts the emissions of carbon, and a 1% rise in economic growth will result to 3.11121% unit rise in carbon emissions. Practical implications-Policy implementation should encourage the use of energy efficient facilities by firms and government and the establishment of carbon trading hubs. Social implications-Failure by governments to heed the recommendations of this research will result to serious climate change issues on economic activities with attendant consequences on human health within the region and globally. Originality/value-This is one of the comprehensive works on subject covering the West African region within the continent.
Energy Policy, 2018
Increase in human activities contribute to the economic growth of a country. However, these human activities also contribute to the environmental pollution (i.e. carbon dioxide emissions). The effect of carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions on the environment is becoming a pressing reality. The study explores the relationship between CO 2 and economic growth in Ghana when the economic structure changes. The study also tested the existence of EKC relationship between economic growth and CO 2 in Ghana. Using linear regression model to find the linear relationship between environmental pollution and economic growth in Ghana, the study employed Ordinary Least Square (OLS) in order to minimize the sum of squared residuals. The study used the data of World Development Indicators (WDI) 2017 for the period 1970-2016. The study employed CO 2 (metric tonnes per capita) as proxy of environmental pollution and GDP per capita (current US $) as proxy of economic growth. Findings indicate that CO 2 and GDP per capita increases at different pace and varies over time period and therefore the study could not establish existence of EKC in Ghana. However, the relationship between the variables is significant with t-value 7.784> 2 and P-value of 0.000<0.05. This means that CO 2 emission level in Ghana is influence by GDP. The study findings also indicate that agriculture as the engine of Ghana's economy growth and development is experiencing continuous decline in terms of its contribution to GDP for the past four decades. The study therefore concluded that, there is the need for establishment of regulations, proper institutional structures to set up policy framework, enforcement agencies to monitor to ensure compliance and creation of public awareness of the dangers pose by environmental degradation.
iranian economic review, 2020
There are clear signs of climate change in Africa, while the continent has limited economic and financial muscle to generate clean, low-carbon, greener and energy-efficient production activities needed to improve environmental quality. Hence, this paper examines the impact of structural change and financial development on carbon dioxide emissions and tests whether the EKC hypothesis is supported for 31 sampled Sub-Sahara African countries between 1990 and 2017. The study utilizes the pooled mean group heterogeneous panel data. The study finds that the EKC exists for all income groups. The deterministic role of financial development is observed for low and lower-middle-income countries while the influential role of financial development was obtained for upper-middle and high-income countries. Structural change, industrialisation and agriculture increase the level of CO2 in upper-middle and high, lower-middle, and low-income countries, respectively. To minimize climate change in Afric...