Exploring the dynamic effect of economic growth on carbon dioxide emissions in Africa: evidence from panel PMG estimator

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 (PMG-ARDL) techniques and the Dumitrescu-Hurlin causality test to determine the long- and short-run effects of economic growth, urbanization, renewable energy consumption, and good governance on CO2 emissions. The results from the PMG estimator validate the EKC hypothesis since a 1% surge in GDP per capita increases emissions by 0.61% in the long run, while a 1% increase in its square decreases emissions by 0.03%. In the short-run, economic growth does not exercise any significant effect on emissions. Furthermore, results indicate a significantly negative and positive long-run effect of renewable energy and governance, respectively. Finally, our causality test shows bidirectional relationship between CO2 emissions and all the explanatory variables. Henceforth, we provided policy implications based on the study’s results.