Urbanization and CO₂ emissions intensity in Africa

Abstract

The pace of urbanization in the world will very quickly become a major problem for development in all its dimensions. This dynamic, also observed in Africa, could have serious consequences for macroeconomic and environmental balances. This paper examines the relationship between urbanization and the intensity of CO₂ emissions on a panel of 48 African countries over the period 1980–2016. Using an augmented STIRPAT model, we found that if urbanization is a highly significant factor for pollution in Africa, the effect is heterogeneous for different levels of pollution. This effect is more pronounced in resource-rich countries; the difference in the quality of institutions helping to reinforce the heterogeneity. Additional tests reveal the existence of simultaneous threshold effects of pollution concerning urbanization and the level of development. Finally, the overall effect of urbanization on global warming is positive and significant. Based on these outcomes, we suggest a set of policies.

Keywords:

• urbanization
• CO₂ emission
• pollution
• Africa
• quantile regression

JEL:

• Q50
• R00

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Désiré Avom, Simplice Asongu, Acho Timah, Egbe Fride, for their rich comments which helped to improve the quality of this paper. However, any errors are the authors’ sole responsibility.

Declaration of interest statement

There is no conflict of interest related to this paper.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1 It was in 1865, in The Coal Question, that the British economist W. Stanley Jevons first highlighted the rebound mechanism for an energy resource, namely coal. In a very general way, the rebound effect, also called the Jevons paradox, can be defined as “the increase in consumption linked to the reduction of the limits to the use of a technology, these limits being able to be monetary, temporal, social, physical, linked to effort, danger, organization…”

2 Eritrea, Liberia, Djibouti, Sao Tome and Principe, Somalia and South Sudan.

3 Resource-rich countries are considered major exporters of natural resources, and these exports accounted for more than a quarter of its total merchandise exports over the period 2005–15. Also, they are considered to be budgetary dependent on their natural resources whose revenues linked to the exploitation of these resources represented,on average, more than a fifth of budgetary revenues. Countries are considered poor in natural resources otherwise (IMF 2021).

4 See Table A2 in the Appendix (online supplementary material).

5 Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are gaseous components that absorb infrared radiation emitted from the earth's surface and thus contribute to the greenhouse effect. The increase in their concentration in the Earth's atmosphere is one of the factors behind global warming. The main GHGs naturally present in the atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone.