• Energy Research

Coal is crucial for economic progress but equally baneful to the environment. Thus, the coal consumption-environmental sustainability nexus attracted the attention of both policymakers and scholars. This study evaluates the coal consumption-environment nexus in developed and developing countries over the period 2000-2020. We used panel data econometric techniques and the Augmented Anderson-Hsiao (AAH) two-step GMM estimator to assess and compare the impact of coal consumption on CO2. The findings revealed that the consumption of coal aggravates environmental pollution and hinders environmental sustainability. Thus, this study confirms the environment-destroying effect of coal consumption. However, the findings reveal that the negative consequence of coal consumption on the environment is more for the sample of developed countries than that of developing countries. This suggests that coal use harms the environment developed economies than the developing countries. Specifically, we found that the carbon emissions emanating from a one percent (1%) increase in coal consumption of the developed countries is about six-fold more than that of the developing countries. Therefore, this study suggests a gradual phase-out, rather than sudden phase-out, of coal consumption with greater emphasis on developed countries. The implementation of the coal phase-out policy and the removal of fossil fuel subsidies should start with the developed countries or be made more stringent in such countries than the developing economies. The developed countries should relinquish a greater proportion of their coal consumption than the developing countries.

The current study examines sustainable electricity consumption for economic growth in a small open and tourist economy. The energy-tourism nexus is evaluated for the relationship between sustainable electricity consumption and the international tourist arrival for the South African economy. The present study leverages on annual frequency data for South Africa from 1995 to 2019 for empirical analysis using the ARDL technique. Accordingly, empirical findings indicate a significant direct connection between the sustainable electricity consumption and the international tourism arrival; the study affirms that tourism-induced energy hypothesis is valid in South Africa. However, from a policy standpoint, alternative energy efficiency mechanisms such as renewable energy systems and emancipation of current energy management capabilities are recommended in South Africa. This is necessary for sustainable eco-friendly tourism that engenders clean energy consumption for the study area. More insights into policy caveats are presented in the concluding section.

Trade has become a carrier for transporting both clean and dirty (pollution-intensive) goods, services and technologies between countries. While the impact of trade on economic development has been reported in the extant literature, insufficient and inconsistent results exist between pollution-embedded trade and environmental performance. Using the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Generalized method of moments and panel quantiles via Moments, this study explored the role of government integrity on trade-environment nexus in the post-Kyoto protocol era for 79 countries between 2008 and 2018. The empirical results suggest that per capita GDP and government integrity improve environmental performance whereas trade impedes it. In the quantile regression model, the effect of government integrity is significant at the median quantiles with a stronger effect in countries with higher environmental performance. The negative effect of trade is not only significant from the lower quantile through the median quantile but decreases in magnitude, tracking from countries with lower to higher environmental performance. While the positive effect of government integrity is significant from the median quantile onwards, the negative effect of trade is only significant in the lower quantile. Robustness analysis from the GMM dynamic panel estimation technique shows that interacting government integrity with trade yields a positive and significant coefficient. Meaning that improved government integrity averts the negative effect of trade on environmental performance. The study suggests that outsourcing the regulations of trade-oriented multinational companies operating in developing economies with weak institutions to global humanitarian organisations such as the United Nations would be the first step to reduce trade-attributable environmental degradation.

Crude oil and natural gas are crucial to the Russian economy. Therefore, this study examined the interconnections between crude oil price, natural gas price, and Russian economic policy uncertainty (EPU) over the period 1994–2019 using multivariate DCC-MGARCH models. The findings show that there are strong interconnections (co-movement) between the energy prices and EPU in Russia, and that it might be misleading to assume independence or neutrality between the variables. Although Russia is also a crucial player in both the natural gas and the crude oil markets, this study reveals that there is a stronger co-movement of the EPU with gas price than with the oil price. Russia is the largest exporter of natural gas and the second-largest producer; it is plausible that the natural gas price correlates with EPU more than the crude oil price. Further, the correlation between gas price and EPU and the correlation between crude oil price and EPU have similar patterns. Each declines almost in the same period and, equally, increases concurrently. In addition, the results revealed that significant global shocks and crises, such as the 2008 global financial crisis, the 2014–2017 Russian financial crisis, the 9/11 terrorist attack, and the Russo–Ukrainian conflicts, influence the interconnections between the energy prices and Russian EPU.

This study examines the asymmetric effect of oil price changes on CO2 emissions for 30 African countries from 1987 to 2019. Using the panel non-linear autoregressive distributive lag (NARDL) methodology, the study reveals that an asymmetric relationship exists between oil price and CO2 emission as positive changes in the oil price are associated with a reduction in CO2 emissions. The negative change is also found to be associated with an increase in CO2 emission across the panel countries. In addition, in the long run, the degree of CO2 emission response to positive changes in oil price is more in oil-importing countries relative to oil-exporting countries. While CO2 emission response in oil-exporting countries responds more to negative changes in oil prices than in oil-importing countries. When we examine the response of GDP to a reduction in CO2 emission, we found that while a negative change in CO2 is associated with an increase in GDP in oil-importing countries, negative changes in CO2 emission significantly lead to a reduction in GDP in net oil-exporting countries. The study suggests strengthening the call for carbon emission reduction, especially in oil-exporting countries as oil price does not exhibit enough push factor towards the mitigation of CO2 emission in the continent.

Purpose This study aims to examine the effects of policy incentives and cost on the choice and use of renewable energy in North-Central Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach The data for this study are collected from a sample of 290 respondents drawn from across 6 states in North-Central Nigeria, including the Federal Capital Territory. This study uses descriptive statistics and multinomial logistic regression to analyze the data. Findings The findings reveal that there is a huge potential demand for renewable energy sources (particularly solar photovoltaic) in the rural communities in Nigeria. It also indicates a positive and highly significant relationship between the level of awareness, availability and income and the use (consumption) of renewable energy sources among the rural communities. Furthermore, the cost of installation and maintenance of renewable energy, its reliability and availability are significant determinants of renewable energy choices among rural inhabitants in Nigeria. Practical implications The authors submit that inefficient policy strategies, high cost of installation and lack of awareness remain the major hindrances to the use of more efficient renewable energy sources. From a policy point of view, a viable strategy for effective use of renewable energy sources is the involvement of government, development partners and agencies for the funding of renewable energy technology in the rural sector of the country. The usage of modern renewable energy would increase if policy incentives are aimed at covering parts of the maintenance and installation cost of renewable energy users. The authors recommend that apart from creating awareness on the benefits of renewable energy, policymakers should provide a desirable policy environment for private energy firms to supply renewable energy at an affordable cost to the rural communities in Nigeria. Social implications A majority of the rural households in Nigeria, as shown in this article, are poor and therefore use firewood as their main source of cooking energy because of the cost of renewable energy. Originality/value Despite the abundance of renewable energy sources and government effort at improving renewable energy use, more than 15 million people live without access to electricity and 54 million are without modern energy services for cooking and lightening in Nigeria. A total of 61% of these people live in rural areas. Therefore, this study is novel in providing energy policy insights for rural communities in North-Central Nigeria.

This study examines the impact of financial deepening and sustainable energy supply on domestic investment in West African countries. The data for the study range from 1990 to 2020 and were sourced from the World Development Indicator database. We used the cross-sectional autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) estimator for the analysis. Empirical findings showed that credit to the private sector significantly impacts domestic investment in West Africa. It was also revealed that access to electricity significantly impacts domestic investment in West Africa. This demonstrates that funding for the private sector and adequate power generation improve the investment in any economy. The study concludes that financial deepening has a significant impact on domestic investment. The study therefore recommends that the management of banks should be encouraged to pursue policies that will deepen the efficient allocation of financial services for domestic investment in the region.

The present study draws motivation from United Nation Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) and its impact by 2030. To this end, the current study explored the nexus between energy consumption (SDG-7), climate action (SDG-13), and economic growth (SDG-8) while controlling for role of government apparatus such as like voice of accountability, rule of law, control of corruption and technology innovation in a balanced panel of 46 Sub-Saharan African (SSA) economies from 1996 to 2020. For a robust study, the present study leverages on secondgeneration estimator such as cross-sectional SUR, two-stage least square (2SLS), 2SLS is referred to as the superior estimators to traditional pool OLS due to its capabilities of including endogenous regressors and efficiency. Empirical findings show that all the coefficients associated with mobile subscription (lnTI) are negative and statistically significant at 1% level of significance (P-value <0.01). This indicates that higher (lower) mobile cellular subscriptions results in the reduction (rise) of renewable energy consumption, implying that technological innovation in terms of the expansion of mobile cellular subscription hinders access to clean energy in SSA. Conclusively, the present study presents interesting outcomes concerning technology innovation, Governance, and SDGs goal 7 (clean energy) and 13 (climate action) in Sub-Saharan African blocs. Policy strategies are outlined in the concluding section.