Reducing carbon dioxide emissions; Does renewable energy matter?

Abstract

The study employed panel cointegration techniques to investigate the relationship between renewable energy and carbon dioxide emissions for 28 Sub-Sahara African countries spanning the period 1980-2014. The findings based on the Fully Modified OLS and GMM estimation techniques show that both renewable and nonrenewable energy contribute to carbon dioxide emissions in the countries studied in the long run but only nonrenewable energy has a significant positive effect on carbon dioxide emissions in the short run. The results show that a percentage increase in nonrenewable energy consumption leads to an increase of 1.07% and 1.9% in CO₂ emissions in the short and long run respectively. Additionally, economic growth contributes to environmental degradation while urbanization has a negative effect on carbon dioxide emissions. A percentage increase in GDP leads to 1.3% and 1.82% increase in emissions in the short and long run respectively. The results also show that less democratic states are more likely to pollute the environment than more democratic states. Further, there is no statistically significant effect of non-renewable energy in the short-run for more democratic nations.

Keywords: Carbon dioxide emissions; Environmental degradation; Nonrenewable energy; Pollution; Renewable energy; Urbanization.