Improving ICT and renewable energy for environmental sustainability in sub-Saharan Africa

Kabiru Maji Ibrahim,Salisu Ibrahim Waziri

doi:10.30585/jrems.v2i3.471

Abstract

The study investigates the role of information and communication technology (ICT) and renewable energy on environmental sustainability in sub-Saharan Africa. The system generalized method of moments (GMM) was employed to estimate data of 45 sub-Saharan countries that cover the 2008 -2016 period. Result reveals that increasing ICT penetration and renewable energy use reduce CO2 emissions and improves environmental sustainability. Economic growth and population growth also mitigate CO2 emissions while education and trade openness have a neutral impact. These findings imply that increasing penetration of ICT facilities and renewable energy in the region will promote inclusive environmental sustainability. The interactive estimation of ICT variables was further considered to determine net effects and the ICT threshold that is relevant for policy implication.

Highlights

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plays an important role in this era of globalization and economic integration
The first model for mobile phones reveals a negative relationship between ICT indicator and CO2 emissions indicating that increasing ICT will mitigate CO2 emissions and improves environmental sustainability
The study explores the role of ICT and renewable energy on environmental sustainability using CO2 emissions from liquid fuel consumption as a measure of carbon emissions

Summary

Introduction

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plays an important role in this era of globalization and economic integration. Penetration in the region; the role renewable energy consumption can play in improving environmental sustainability and reducing greenhouse gas arising from CO2 emissions; the fact that investigating ICT and environmental sustainability is a new and ongoing debate and; the gap in the extant literature of not including renewable energy variable. The study deviates from recent literature on ICT, economic and growth and CO2 emissions (Pradhan et al, 2015; Erumban and Das, 2016; Salahuddin and Alam, 2016) and sub-Saharan African studies (Asongu et al, 2017a; Asongu et al, 2017b; Haftu, 2018), by including renewable energy consumption in the nexus between ICT and environmental sustainability. To avoid model specification bias, more conditional variables were included in the study

Literature Review

Model estimation

Results and Discussion

Conclusions