Climate Changes in Africa, Does Urbanization Matter? A semi-Parametric Panel Data Analysis

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Finance and Economics, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, UAE

2 Department of Urban Planing, Faculty of Urban and Regional Planing, University of Curtin, Perth, Australia

Abstract

The present study seeks to examine the impacts of urbanization on carbon emissions through the investigation of the existence of an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). Using the STIRPAT framework, this is the first study in Africa to explore the urbanization and carbon emissions nexus; using panel data together with semi-parametric panel fixed effects regression. Our dataset refers to a panel of 54 countries in Africa spanning the period 1980–2014. We find the evidence supports the presence of an inverted-U shaped relationship between urbanization and carbon emissions in the region. Overall, our findings suggest that environmental degradation in the continent may be reversible and environmental quality may be recoverable even with growing urbanization.

Keywords

References

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History

  • Receive Date: 21 February 2019
  • Revise Date: 09 June 2019
  • Accept Date: 16 July 2019

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