Aquilas Nkwetta Ajong, Ngangnchi Forbe Hodu, Mbella Mukete Emmanuel
Department of Economics, University of Buea, South West Region, Cameroon.
Department of Organizational Sciences, HICM, The University of Bamenda, Cameroon.
Heliyon. 2024 Feb 6;10(4):e25681. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e25681. eCollection 2024 Feb 29.
African countries have become interested in economic transformation through revamping their manufacturing sectors. However, the environmental effect of industrialization is an issue of great concern, with the need to maintain a sustainable environment in line with sustainable development goals. This study investigates the effect of industrialization on environmental sustainability in Africa, taking in to consideration the moderation effect of renewable energy and non-renewable energy consumption. Data was collected for 46 African countries from the Global Footprint Network, World Development Indicators of the World Bank and the Food and Agricultural Organization from 2000 to 2022. Robust panel fixed effects regression and generalized least squares methods were used to analyze the data. The empirical results showed that value added in manufacturing has a negative and significant effect on environmental sustainability. However, when interacted with renewable energy consumption, manufacturing exerted a positive effect on load capacity factor, indicating that the environment will be sustainable if manufacturing sector activities are powered by renewable energies. This suggests that renewable energy has the ability to propel industrial growth in Africa while sustaining the environment. The moderating effect of non-renewable energy and manufacturing is positive in the fixed effects regression and negative for the generalized least squares estimates. This suggest that fossil fuel consumption, particularly clean fossil fuels or natural gas can still drive African manufacturing without considerably harming the environment but continual use of it in to the long run will make the environment unsustainable. From the above results, this study recommends that for sustainable industrialization to take place, Africa should grow her manufacturing sector by extending the range of manufactured products from light to heavy manufactures while ensuring that renewable energy remains the major source of industrial energy supply.
非洲国家已对通过改造其制造业来实现经济转型产生兴趣。然而，工业化对环境的影响是一个备受关注的问题，需要根据可持续发展目标维持可持续的环境。本研究考察了工业化对非洲环境可持续性的影响，同时考虑了可再生能源和不可再生能源消费的调节作用。研究数据来自全球足迹网络、世界银行的世界发展指标以及联合国粮食及农业组织，涵盖了2000年至2022年期间的46个非洲国家。研究运用了稳健的面板固定效应回归和广义最小二乘法对数据进行分析。实证结果表明，制造业增加值对环境可持续性具有负面且显著的影响。然而，当与可再生能源消费相互作用时，制造业对负荷容量因子产生了积极影响，这表明如果制造业活动由可再生能源提供动力，环境将实现可持续发展。这表明可再生能源有能力在维持环境的同时推动非洲的工业增长。在固定效应回归中，不可再生能源与制造业的调节效应为正，而在广义最小二乘法估计中为负。这表明化石燃料消费，尤其是清洁化石燃料或天然气，仍可推动非洲制造业发展而不会对环境造成太大损害，但从长远来看持续使用将使环境不可持续。基于上述结果，本研究建议，为实现可持续工业化，非洲应通过扩大制成品范围，从轻工业制造向重工业制造拓展来发展其制造业，同时确保可再生能源仍然是工业能源供应的主要来源。
