The influence of growth determinants on environmental quality in Sub-Saharan Africa states

The survey explores the relationship between growth determinants on carbon emissions of 44 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa for the duration 1990–2014. The research applies Dumitrescu and Hurlin’s Granger causality and pooled mean group models to analyse data. A two-way (bidirectional) involving environmental quality (emissions) and the following variables—economic growth, renewable energy consumption, industrial practice and financial development, is established. A one-way (unidirectional) causality out of actual development of agriculture to carbon emissions as well as human capital to emissions is apparent. Moreover, economic growth illustrates a positive and significant link with emissions, and the opposite is true for renewable energy consumption in both periods (short-run together with long-run). Financial development shows a negative and insignificant link with environmental quality in the short-term although in the long-term that connection is significantly positive. Industrial practice is significantly positively associated with emissions in the short-term and significantly negatively connected with emissions in the long-term. The actual development of agriculture illustrates an insignificantly positive connection with emissions in the short-term but such a link is positively significant in the long-term. Human capital indicates an insignificantly positive association with environmental quality in the short-run although the result changes to being significantly negative in the long-term. The study generally demonstrates that these country growth determinants in SSA still add increasing levels of carbon emissions in practice.