Role of technological innovation, renewable and non-renewable energy, and economic growth on environmental quality. Evidence from African countries

Abstract

This study examines the impact of renewable and non-renewable energy consumption on carbon emissions, considering the role of population density, urbanization, foreign direct investment, technological innovation, and trade openness for African countries from 1990 to 2019. We apply an advanced econometric methodology like the cross-sectional autoregressive distributed model (CS-ARDL) for long-run and short-run estimation, which allows for the cross-sectional dependencies and slope heterogeneity. Our finding shows that the non-renewable resources, population density, urbanization, and foreign direct investment contribute to the carbon emissions; in contrast, renewable resources and trade openness reduce the carbon emissions in African countries. Results also report a unidirectional causality from non-renewable energy consumption to carbon emissions, while there is evidence of a feedback hypothesis between renewable energy consumption and carbon emissions. This study provides several policy implications for sustainable development.