Department of International Logistics and Transportation, Faculty of Economics Administrative and Social Sciences, Istanbul Gelisim University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Faculty of Economics Administrative and Social Sciences, Istanbul Gelisim University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2021 Dec;28(47):66695-66708. doi: 10.1007/s11356-021-14758-w. Epub 2021 Jul 8.
In the energy-environment literature, a handful of the advanced economies, mostly the European Union countries, have met some of the national environmental sustainability targets. Consequently, most of these countries are renewing their policies for 2040, while the African bloc largely seems to have a longer path to emerge from the woods. Giving this insight, we are compelled to draw inferences from the role of major energy sources (conventional and renewable) in the sub-Saharan Africa's drive for environmental sustainability target. To achieve this objective, we examine the validity of an N-shaped hypothesis for sub-Saharan region which has received less documentation in the extant literature. Thus, this study employed the pooled mean group autoregressive distributed lag (PMG-ARDL) and Dumitrescu and Hurlin panel causality approaches as estimation techniques. Our empirical results show that conventional and renewable energy aspects respectively worsen and improve environmental quality in both short and long run. Importantly, the study establishes the validity of the N-shaped hypothesis in the two periods (short and long run) as reported by the study regression with 17.830% for GDP growth, -2.241 % for quadratic form of GDP, and 0.094% for cubic form of GDP growth, respectively, in the long run. Moreso, renewable energy shows a magnitude of -1.306% and -0.157% for short- and long-run period, respectively, on carbon dioxide emission. The implication is that environmental quality in the sub-Saharan region is potentially characterized in cycles of worse (decreased quality), improvement (better quality), and again worse (deceased quality) resulting from the significant change in the region's economic prosperity. In addition to the ARDL approach, the causality analysis further reiterates that there is significant causality from the energy forms and economic expansion to carbon emission at least in one direction. While examining the validity of N-shaped hypothesis for the first time for Africa, the study offers policy perspective to the governments and environmental stakeholders in the panel countries, especially to re-engineer the region's economic dynamics if the region must meet the anticipated Sustainable Development Goals 2030.
在能源环境文献中，少数几个发达经济体，主要是欧盟国家，已经实现了一些国家环境可持续性目标。因此，这些国家中的大多数正在为 2040 年更新政策，而非洲集团似乎在走出困境方面还有很长的路要走。有鉴于此，我们必须从主要能源（常规和可再生能源）在撒哈拉以南非洲实现环境可持续性目标方面的作用中得出结论。为了实现这一目标，我们检验了在现有文献中较少涉及的撒哈拉以南地区 N 型假说的有效性。因此，本研究采用了面板均值群自回归分布滞后（PMG-ARDL）和 Dumitrescu 和 Hurlin 面板因果关系方法作为估计技术。我们的实证结果表明，在短期和长期内，常规和可再生能源分别恶化和改善环境质量。重要的是，该研究在两个时期（短期和长期）证实了 N 型假说的有效性，研究回归的 GDP 增长率分别为 17.830%，GDP 二次形式为-2.241%，GDP 三次形式为 0.094%。此外，在短期内，可再生能源对二氧化碳排放的影响分别为-1.306%和-0.157%，在长期内也是如此。这意味着，由于该地区经济繁荣的显著变化，撒哈拉以南地区的环境质量可能具有恶化（质量下降）、改善（质量提高）和再次恶化（质量下降）的周期性特征。除了 ARDL 方法外，因果关系分析还进一步重申，至少在一个方向上，能源形式和经济扩张与碳排放之间存在显著的因果关系。在首次为非洲检验 N 型假说的有效性时，本研究为面板国家的政府和环境利益相关者提供了政策视角，特别是如果该地区必须实现预期的 2030 年可持续发展目标，那么该研究为该地区重新设计经济动态提供了政策视角。
