Do Energy Poverty and Energy Consumption Drive CO2 Emissions? Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Energy poverty is a multidimensional concept, but in the developing country context, it could refer to the lack or difficulty of people to access modern and reliable energy services. It refers particularly to access to electricity and to modern and clean cooking fuels. This limited access constitutes a serious hindrance to socioeconomic development and has adverse consequences on environment. The present study attempts to investigation the contribution of energy poverty and consumption to CO2 emissions in 20 Sub-Saharan Africa countries over 1996-2015. Using Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS) and Panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE), our results broadly suggest non-significant effect of energy poverty on CO2 emissions. However, we found evidence that primary energy consumption drives CO2 emissions. To mitigate the adverse effects of energy consumption on environment, governments should design and implement policies to improve energy efficiency and promote renewable energies use.