Industrialization and CO 2 Emissions in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Mitigating Role of Renewable Electricity

Urszula Mentel, Elżbieta Wolanin, Mansur Eshov and Raufhon Salahodjaev
Additional contact information
Urszula Mentel: Department of Projects Management and Security Policy, Faculty of Management, Rzeszow University of Technology, 35-959 Rzeszow, Poland
Elżbieta Wolanin: Department of Quantitative Methods, Faculty of Management, Rzeszow University of Technology, 35-959 Rzeszow, Poland
Mansur Eshov: Department of Academic Affairs, Tashkent State University of Economics, Islam Karimov Street 49, Tashkent 100066, Uzbekistan

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 3, 1-12

Abstract: This study aims to explore the relationship between industry value added, renewable energy, and CO 2 emissions in a sample of 44 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2000–2015. This study makes several important contributions to extant research. While existing research was focused on the renewable energy-CO 2 emissions nexus, the current study assesses the moderating role of the renewables sector in the industrialization-CO2 emissions relationship. In addition, this study considers whether EKC relationships will hold after accounting for structural transformations (including industrial contributions to GDPs). Moreover, we are revising the existence of the EKC framework for the Sub-Saharan African countries. Using a two-step system GMM estimator, we found that the share of industry in GDP has a significant positive impact on CO 2 emissions, while renewable electricity output reduces CO 2 emissions. If causal, a one percentage point increase in renewable electricity output reduces carbon emissions by 0.22%. Moreover, the renewable energy sector then mediates the positive effect of industry value added on CO 2 emissions. We also find evidence for the statistical significance of the inverted U-shaped relationship between GDP per capita and CO 2 emissions.

Keywords: industry; renewable energy; CO 2 emissions; Sub-Saharan Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/3/946/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/3/946/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:3:p:946-:d:736285

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().