Environmental degradation and inclusive human development in sub-Saharan Africa

In the light of challenges to sustainable development in the post-2015 development agenda, this paper assesses how increasing carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions affect inclusive human development in 44 countries in sub-Saharan Africa for the period 2000–2012. The following findings are established from Fixed Effects and Tobit regressions: first, unconditional effects and conditional impacts are respectively positive and negative from CO₂ emissions per capita, CO₂ emissions from liquid fuel consumption, and CO₂ intensity. This implies a Kuznets-shaped curve because of consistent decreasing returns; and second, the corresponding net effects are consistently positive. The following findings are apparent from Generalized Method of Moments regressions: first, unconditional effects and conditional impacts are respectively negative and positive from CO₂ emissions per capita, CO₂ emissions from liquid fuel consumption, and CO₂ intensity. This implies a U-shaped curve because of consistent increasing returns; and second, the corresponding net effects are overwhelmingly negative. Based on the robust findings and choice of best estimator, the net effect of increasing CO₂ emissions on inclusive human development is negative. Policy implications are discussed.