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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.

In Central Africa we often see delays and / or failures of initiatives with supranational character (CEMAC CEFDHAC, ECCAS, etc) referring to the implementation of development projects and in the resolution of various conflicts. Thus a new tool for the resolution of transnational dispute has been devised and implemented in 2004 to mark the regional dimension in the resolution of many common conflicts between Central African populations: it is the Initiative for Central Africa (INICA).

This study examines the effects of economic growth on the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of a sample of four countries of the Congo Basin. Cointegration tests by the distributed lags or AutoRegressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) developed by Pesaran et al. (1997, 2001) is applied to data on Cameroon, Congo, Gabon and the Democratic Republic of Congo for the period from 1978 to 2012 and indicates the existence of a long term relationship between the variables. The results show that the economic growth has a positive impact on CO2 emissions in these countries. Also, the consumption of energy, population density and industrial activities increase CO2 emissions significantly in these countries, while the commercial opening does not have a significant impact.

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.