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European Journal of Comparative Economics, Vol 17. no. 2 (Winter 2020), p. 205 - 227, This study identifies the drivers of carbon dioxide emission and measures its effects on climate change in the countries of the Congo Basin. It applies panel Autoregressive Distributed lag (ARDL) model to Kaya’s (1990) identity framework, which breaks up the main determinants of carbon dioxide emissions into energy intensity, carbon intensity, population and per capita gross domestic product. To take into account the ecological specificities of these countries, we add other variables; like “biocapacity” and “ecological balance”. Using data for the 1971-2016 period, the results show that economic growth has a more negative effect on environmental quality in the Congo Basin, followed by energy intensity, carbon intensity and population density. “Biocapacity” and “ecological balance” have negative and positive coefficients, suggesting that they respectively are a “carbon sink” and “emission source” for CO2, although the coefficients are non-significant. Particular attention should therefore be given to forest protection and ecological transition, problems arising from population explosion and the resulting uncontrolled urban development.

The objective of this paper is to examine the effects of economic growth and the trade openness on the quality of the environment. Pesaran’s et al (2001) Auto-Regressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) was applied on the macroeconomic data of Cameroon dating from 1971 to 2011. The results reveal that: the economic growth induces a deterioration of the environment in the short-term but improves it in the long-term while the trade openness deteriorates the environment in Cameroon. L’objet de ce papier est de determiner les effets de la croissance economique et de l’ouverture commerciale sur la qualite de l’environnement. La methode de cointegration par les retards echelonnes ou Auto Regressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) developpee par Pesaran et al. (2001) a ete appliquee sur les donnees macroeconomiques du Cameroun sur la periode allant de 1971 a 2011. Les resultats revelent que : la croissance economique induit la deterioration de l’environnement a court terme, mais l’ameliore a long terme tandis que l’ouverture commerciale deteriore l’environnement au Cameroun.

This paper investigates the effects of economic growth, electricity consumption and urbanization on CO2 emissions in Cameroon applying the newly developed ARDL to time series data from 1971 to 2011. In addition, we used a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) in order to examine the long and short runs causality between CO2 emissions and others variables. The results obtained suggest that CO2 emissions are positively related to economic growth, electricity consumption and urbanization. Besides, the results suggest that there exist two forms of long run unidirectional causality when CO2 emissions and electricity consumption are dependent variables. We also found that in the short run, there is bidirectional causality between CO2 emissions and electricity consumption. Although Cameroon is not a major contributor to global carbon emissions, it should participate in the global effort of mitigation.