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This paper evaluates the welfare impacts of carbon taxation on South African households. Using household survey data for the period 2009–2015, I estimate the Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS) model to obtain elasticities and use them to simulate consumer responses to price changes resulting from carbon taxation. Results show that an increase in electricity and public transport prices following a carbon tax policy is regressive while a price increase in motor fuel is progressive. In addition, when there is a simultaneous increase in the prices of energy goods, the poorest and middle income households disproportionately suffer a higher welfare loss compared to the richest households. I also show that income is important in determining whether rural households experience a higher or lower welfare loss than urban households. Furthermore, revenue recycling in terms of lump-sum transfers of the tax revenue to households below the national poverty lines and the bottom 40% would offset the welfare loss from a carbon tax policy in South Africa.

Achieving economic development and environmental sustainability simultaneously is one of the most important development challenges for Africa today. The relationship between economic growth and environmental sustainability is founded on the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). This paper examines the validity of the hypothesis and the driving factors of carbon dioxide (CO2) emission in five African countries using the STIRPAT empirical model, panel cointegration and fully modified ordinary least squares. Unlike previous studies, economic development is disaggregated into agriculture and industrial economic development. The results show that there is no evidence of the validity of the hypothesis in Africa, regardless of whether economic development is driven by agriculture or industrialisation. Energy structure and energy intensity are the two major driving forces of CO2 emissions in Africa. Population growth and urbanisation have negative relationship with CO2 emissions. From our results, the EKC is not a sound basis for environmental policy in Africa; rather, environmental policy in Africa, specifically for CO2 emissions mitigation, should focus on encouraging energy efficiency, enhancing the use of clean energy, incorporating the impact of population growth and harnessing the positive impacts of urbanisation.

Renewable energy is an important factor in achieving a low-carbon economic development path in China. This paper investigates the factors influencing renewable electricity consumption in China. Specifically, the factors that influence the share of renewable electricity in total electricity consumption in China is investigated using data from 1980 to 2011 and employing the Johansen cointegration technique and vector error correction model. The result of the analysis shows that there is a long run relationship between renewable electricity consumption and GDP per capita, trade openness, foreign direct investment, financial development and share of fossil fuel in energy consumption. Economic development and financial development promotes renewable electricity consumption while foreign direct investment, trade openness and the lobby of conventional energy sources undermine the share of renewables in total electricity consumption in China. While the effects of shocks to the other variables appear to die out over time, the “lobby effect” is persistent and explosive. The results also show that there is a uni-directional short run causality from financial development to renewable electricity consumption and from renewable electricity consumption to trade openness. The Chinese government should pursue policies that not only increase the amount of renewable electricity, but also increase the share of renewables in total electricity consumption.

Developing countries, including Nigeria, aim to achieve industrialisation and sustainable development. However, there are few empirical studies that examined the impact of industrialisation-led economic transformation on carbon emissions in developing countries. This is the focus of this study. The paper investigates the impact of industrial value-added on CO2 emissions in Nigeria using the Kaya Identity framework and Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF), Johansen׳s cointegration technique and vector error correction model (VECM). The data spans from 1980 to 2011. The result of the ADF test indicates that continual long term policies that exert permanent shocks on the variables are required to achieve economic development, industrialisation and CO2 reduction. The result of the analysis shows that industrial value-added has an inverse and significant relationship with CO2 emissions, which suggests that there is no evidence that industrialisation increases carbon emissions in Nigeria. GDP per capita and population has positive and significant impacts on CO2 emission. Energy intensity and carbon intensity has positive but very weak significant impact (at 10% level) on CO2 emission. The paper recommends that policy makers in Nigeria should pursue pragmatic industrialisation policies coupled with modest decarbonisation and energy-efficiency measures in order to ensure long term industrial, economic and sustainable development.

OPEC has long been a major stakeholder and strong player in the global energy market, especially in the petroleum sub-sector. In recent time, however, there have been questions over the influence of OPEC in the sub-sector due to changing petroleum production landscape specifically as a result of the discovery of unconventional energy resources in North America and emergence of non-OPEC petroleum producing and exporting countries. This development could have significant effect on the global energy market and the macro-economy of OPEC member countries. The stationarity or otherwise of OPEC oil production/supply has important implications for determining whether fluctuations in OPEC market supply has temporary or permanent effect. Using the Zivot–Andrews structural break stationarity test and production data of OPEC member countries from 1980 to 2011, this paper investigates whether fluctuations in OPEC market supply has temporary or permanent effect. The empirical analysis shows that for only 5 OPEC members–Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, Kuwait and UAE—is the hypothesis of unit root rejected. This implies that for the five (5) OPEC members, the effects of shocks to oil production are not permanent and future pattern of oil production can be predicted following past trend. The practical implication of this finding is that OPEC production quota strategy may not have long-term impact on the global oil market. Thus, the cartel needs to improve oil production policy coordination among members and ensure strict adherence to production quota while also stressing the need for diversification in member countries.