Assessing West Africa's Energy-related CO₂ Emissions Towards The Sustainable Development Goals Trend:an Empirical Case Of ARDL Model

The United Nations(UN)Sustainable development goals(SDGs)are the modern progressive road adopted by countries in the world,involving social,economic,and environmental aspects.For decades,in order to develop their economies,West African countries have been popularizing fossil fuel energy,mainly expensive gasoline.At the same time,the Economic Community of West African States(ECOWAS)has taken many measures to reduce CO₂emissions,in order to realize the transformation from fossil fuel energy to sustainable energy consumption,and to achieve the necessary conditions of the sustainable development goals(SDGs).In this study,the 15 countries in West Africa are divided into four regions according to their annual GDP ranking.Region A consists of Nigeria,Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana;region B consists of Senegal,Benin and Guinea;region C consists of Burkina Faso,Niger,Mali,Liberia,Togo and Sierra Leone;and region D consists of Cape Verde,The Gambia and Guinea Bissau.CO₂ emissions is the endogenous variable and the exogenous variables includes carbon intensity(CI),energy intensity(EI),the proportion of petroleum gas in total fossil fuel energy consumption(S₁),the proportion of carbon-free renewable energy penetration in the energy nexus(S₂)and economic activity(EA)per capita GDP and population,considering 37 years(1980-2017)in a time series data sourced from the American Energy Information Administration(EIA,2019)database.This research uses an Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag(ARDL)Model to study the short-term and long-term relationships between the above variables and carbon emissions,and through a series of statistical tests,including an Augmented Dickey Fuller(ADF)and Philip Peron(PP)unit root tests to estimate stationary properties;then the cumulative sum(CUSUM)test is performed;the correlation and boundary cointegration tests of Lagrange multiplier series are followed;finally,Granger causality test is used to evaluate causality and equilibrium correlation.The ARDL results show that carbon intensity(CI)and the proportion of petroleum oil in total fossil fuel energy consumption(S₁)affect CO₂ emissions and become potential drivers of CO₂ emissions in West Africa.In addition,the negative response of energy intensity(EI)indicates that the utilization efficiency of energy consumption is low,which does not help to reduce CO₂ emissions.On the other hand,the positive result of the proportion of carbon free renewable energy in the energy mix(S₁)shows that renewable energy plays an important role in reducing carbon dioxide emissions(CO₂)and promotes economic growth and development in these countries.In addition,the result of the granger causality test shows that,there are unidirectional and bidirectional causality amongst energy variables,while a graphical representation of the Cumulative Sum(CUSUM)test illustrates that data used in this paper are constant and stable at 5%significance level.At the same time,we find that the contribution of each driving factor to carbon emission change is different.Carbon intensity(CI),the proportion of petroleum oil in total fossil fuels energy consumption(S₁)and energy intensity(EI)are the potential historical driving factors for the increase of CO₂ emissions in region A(Nigeria,Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana)and region B(Senegal,Benin,and Guinea);while in region C(Burkina Faso,Niger,Mali,Liberia,Togo,and Sierra Leone),carbon intensity,the proportion of petroleum gas in total fossil fuel energy consumption(S₁)and economic activity per capita GDP lead to CO₂emissions increase in region C(Burkina Faso,Niger,Mali,Liberia,Togo,and Sierra Leone,and region)and in region D((Cape Verde,The Gambia,and Guinea Bissau),increase in CO₂emission is mainly driven by energy intensity levelTherefore,Policymakers need to design different energy strategies for targeted regions that will promote CO₂emissions reduction and support sustainable energy investment programs,in order to achieve the sustainable development goals(SDGs).Chapter 1 presents the historical background of energy structure and carbon emissions in West Africa.Chapter 2 studies the literature on energy related carbon dioxide(CO₂)emissions.Chapter 3 focuses on methods and empirical data collection procedures.Chapter4 focuses on the key components of the results;Chapter 5 provides the contents of the discussion;and Chapter 6 proposes some policy implications.