Is Carbon Decoupling Likely to Happen in Africa: Evidence From Production and Consumption-based Carbon Emissions

Abstract Despite extensive studies made on decoupling between emissions and growth, evidences have shown no uniformity and vast majority of studies considered emissions generated at the point of production alone which do not explicitly account for emissions associated with international trade. Accordingly, this study examines the issue of decoupling between economic growth and carbon emissions in 25 African countries over 1990-2017, considering both production and consumption-based CO2emissions. Different panel data estimation techniques which allow for cross-sectional dependence, heterogeneity,endogeneity and serial-correlation issues are applied for empirical analysis.The study results invariably indicate some evidence of relative decoupling for production-based emissions, but no robust evidence of decoupling for consumption-related emissions. Primary energy intensity and population are found as the main driversof carbon emissions in Africa. Further, exports and imports have insignificant effects on territorial emissions, but significant and offsettingeffects on consumption-based emissions. After all, this study suggests toincorporate emissions generated fromconsumption activities in emissions-growth linkage as production-related emissionsalone would evidently be insufficient for decarbonizing economic growth.