Eco-friendly environment in Cameroon: Does an increase in fossil fuel energy consumption influence economic growth?

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between fossil fuel consumption and economic growth in ensuring energy conservation steps to reduce reliance on fossil fuels for a friendly environment in Cameroon covering the period of 1996–2013. The Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration and the dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) were used for the analysis. The results of long-run coefficients using the ARDL model show a significant and negative relationship between fossil fuel energy consumption, government effectiveness, and economic growth while foreign direct investment (FDI) is not statistically significant but affects economic growth positively. The results of DOLS show a negative and non-significant relationship of fossil fuel energy consumption and government effectiveness, while FDI is statistically significant but affects economic growth positively. In light of the link between fossil fuel consumption and economic growth, it can be assumed that the shift from fossil fuel consumption to renewable energy will be not harmful to economic growth. Therefore, the government must shortly shift to renewable-based energy consumption by designing, implementing, and following up effective policies to promote investment in the renewable energy sector, thereby reducing challenges linked to climate change and global warming.

Keywords:

• fossil fuel energy
• climate changes
• renewable energy
• eco-friendly environment
• Cameroon

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank the anonymous referees for their valuable and constructive criticism of this manuscript. Usual disclaimers apply.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 According to global energy report (2018), the demand of energy rose by 2.3% in the last decade.

2 “The Hidden Costs of Fossil Fuels”, available at https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/coal-and-other-fossil-fuels/hidden-cost-of-fossils.

3 Index Mundi (2014), fossil fuel energy consumption, available at https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/cameroon/indicator/EG.USE.COMM.FO.ZS.

4 Cameroon – Fossil fuel energy consumption as a share of total energy consumption, available at https://knoema.com/atlas/Cameroon/Fossil-fuel-energy-consumption.

5 United Nations Environment Programme (2017), “Atlas of Africa Energy Resources” United Nations Environment Programme, available at https://na.unep.net/siouxfalls/publications/Africa%20Energy%20Atlas%20WEB.pdf.

6 The World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg (2002), available at http://www.sulabhinternational.org/the-world-summit-on-sustainable-development-johannesburg-2002/.

7 Regional Executive Committee for Africa and Arab countries (2015), available at http://www.world-psi.org/en/afrec-2015-regional-executive-committee-africa-and-arab-countries.