Impact of Economic Growth, Energy Use and Population Growth on Carbon Emissions in Sub-Sahara Africa

Abstract

The study examines the impact of economic growth, energy use and population growth on carbon emissions in sub Saharan Africa: Kenya, Nigeria, Botswana, Benin, Togo and Mauritius for the period of 1990-2014. The study employed unit root test, co-integration test, VECM (Vector Error Correction Model) and FMOLS (Fully Modified Ordinary Least-Square) as methodologies to model the causality and linear relationships amongst the variables. The VECM was used to identify the long-run causality and asymptotic convergence among the variables. The results reveal that an increase in energy use and population growth by 1% would cause an increase in CO 2 (Carbon Dioxide) concentration by 0.08% and 0.22% correspondingly, whereas in the long-run 1% increase of energy use increases economic output by 0.09%. As the economy grows without contributing to carbon emissions, governments should invest more in renewable energy. Governments should also come up with policies to regulate population growth and fossil energy use.

Current trends in economy, sustainable development, and energy: a circular economy view

“…The CE has received increased attention in the academic research with a range of reviews on the topic. More explicitly, the current literature explores the nexus among economic growth and environmental problems such as contamination (Ssali et al 2018), pollution (Sarkodie and Strezov 2019), climate change (Goldstone 2018), greenhouse gas discharges (Zhu et al 2016) or global warming (Wang et al 2017) between others. Specific areas of attention are closed loop value and supply chains, circular business models and circular product design (Geissdoerfer et al 2017).…”