Energy consumption, economic growth and energy transition in Africa: A cross‐sectional dependence analysis

Abstract

Energy consumption is stated to be well-planned as an economy's sustenance and is a substantial contributor to a country's, regions' and continent's overall economic growth. Sustainability implies that economic growth is well-aligned with the socioeconomic and environmental objectives required for long-term development (Díaz et al., 2019). Given the current social and environmental business, energy consumption is a key factor (Ikram et al., 2020). Further, considering the increasing threat of global warming and climate change which are primarily caused by an increase in fossil fuel consumption, therefore, examining energy transition is critical for the world economies, and how energy could be produced and consumed from different sources (York & Bell, 2019). According to Zafar et al. ( 2019) coal, natural gas and petroleum are considered to be the main drivers of economic growth, for a long time; owing to their ability to power industrial operations and transportation while also producing energy (Waheed et al., 2019). Renewable and non-renewable energy resources are used to generate and consume energy by families, businesses and transportation (Vural, 2020).Although African nations account for a modest portion of global energy consumption, the continent is becoming increasingly relevant in global energy markets. Commercial energy consumption in Africa has expanded significantly in recent years, and this trend is anticipated to continue (IEA, 2019). However, there is some special intricacy between African energy consumption and real GDP that makes it attractive for academic study and policy objectives at the country-specific and regional levels. For starters, Africa's energy consumption and real GDP have a significant regional dimension. The percentage of contemporary energy consumption is often larger in the North and Southern African areas than in the other sub-Saharan African regions (West Africa, Eastern Africa and Central Africa). Not surprisingly, it is linked to regional disparities in income and level of development. Second, what is fascinating about energy in Africa,

Nudging Sustainable Development: Reviewing Energy Transition and Economic Development

“…The impact of economic development on energy transition is one of the core aspects of this study. Scholars have utilized data from global sources [82,98,116], South Asia [6], Africa [14,37,67], ASEAN [15], OPEC [118], OECD [71], BRICS [10,121], the European Union [103], China [18,40,87], Australia [122], Bangladesh [81], Pakistan [86], and Tunisia [72] in order to perform a comprehensive stratified analysis. This analysis has led to two completely different conclusions.…”

“…It was determined in [35] that renewable electricity output and economic growth promote energy transition in the USA, however, economic growth does not always go hand-in-hand with a positive energy transition [36]. Additionally, there is a long-run and unidirectional causality relationship between economic growth and energy consumption [37,38]. Some scholars have taken a forward-looking approach, exploring the potential energy transition paths and strategies for one or multiple regions in the future, as well as the adjustments and impacts involving different sectors during the transition, including the phenomenon of decoupling from the economy [3,[39][40][41][42][43][44].…”