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The pursuit of economic growth has implications for carbon emissions and climate change. Achieving low carbon development is important for attaining the targets of the sustainable development goals. Africa is often described as a largely import-dependent continent. The continent also requires significant investment in information and communication technologies (ICT) and renewable energy to achieve low-carbon economic growth. However, empirical evidence on the joint impacts of imports of goods and services, clean energy use, ICT, and economic growth on carbon emissions in Africa is scanty and mixed. This paper investigated the impacts of information and communication technologies, renewable energy consumption, import and economic growth on carbon emissions by using rich data on total per capita carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, economic growth, import of goods and services, renewable energy consumption, fixed telephone subscriptions, mobile cellular subscriptions, and individuals using the internet in Africa (2001 ─ 2020) obtained from the World development indicators (WDI) database. Using the Panel autoregressive distributed lag model (PARDL), we found that mobile cellular subscriptions, and level of economic growth significantly increased per capita CO2 emissions in Africa in the long run while renewable energy consumption and technologies and import of goods and services significantly decreased per capita CO2 emissions in the long run. We conclude that information and communication technologies, level of economic growth, import of goods and services, and renewable energy consumption exert impacts on carbon emissions in Africa. Highlights: Achieving low-carbon development in Africa is possible. This research investigated the impacts of information and communication technologies, renewable energy consumption, import and economic growth on carbon emissions in Africa. This study utilized the Panel autoregressive distributed lag model and panel data from 31 African countries. The results shed new light on the emission reduction potential of renewable energy consumption and import of goods and services. The study also shows that ICTs increase carbon emissions in Africa. This article offers recommendations concerning carbon emissions reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analysed the causal link between education, employment, renewable energy consumption and carbon emissions in Africa, where there is scant evidence. Relying on panel data obtained from the World Development Indicators for thirty-two African countries covering a period of 19 years, and five panel rigorous regression models, we found that renewable energy, investment in education, school enrolment, net national income per capita, and employment had negative and significant effects on carbon emission, thus increasing these predictors would result in significant reduction in carbon emission in Africa. We identified a bidirectional causality between carbon emissions and net national income per capita, education expenditure and renewable energy consumption, and carbon emissions and employment. Our findings suggest that investment in education, renewable energy, and employment are relevant in mitigating carbon emissions in Africa. We recommend African governments to invest heavily in education, improve school enrolment, environmental education, renewable energy and employment provision to mitigate carbon emissions. Highlights: • Achieving carbon neutrality in Africa is important. • This research investigated the impact of education, employment, and renewable energy consumption on carbon emissions in Africa. • This study utilized five panel regression models – fixed effect with Driscoll-Kraay standard errors, panel fixed effect model, random effect model, panel fully modified ordinary least square model, and panel canonical correlation analysis and panel data from 32 African countries. • The results shed new light on the emission reduction potential of renewable energy consumption, education expenditure, school enrolment, per capita income, and employment. • This article offers recommendations to attain carbon neutrality and environmental sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper employs a recently constructed consumption-based carbon dioxide emissions data in which emissions computations are made based on fossil fuel usage domestically, in addition to emissions emanating from imports minus exports. We contrast this measure with the commonly measured territory-based carbon dioxide emissions data and examine how trade performance (split into imports, exports, and total trade) impacts these two measures of carbon dioxide. We focus on 22 sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1995–2014. Employing the system generalized method of moments, we find trade to generally have positive effect on emissions. The results are consistent across the different measures of trade and carbon dioxide emissions. The results of the paper allow us to give some policy suggestions regarding carbon dioxide emissions in sub-Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an underdeveloped region, the aviation industry in Africa is developing rapidly, and its carbon emissions play an essential role in achieving carbon neutrality in the aviation industry in underdeveloped areas. However, the problem of carbon transfer caused by passenger flow on international routes has not been addressed, especially in Africa. This paper first calculates the CO2 emissions of African international routes from 2019 to 2021 based on the Modified Fuel Percentage Method (MFPM) and the ICAO standard methods. Then, we measure African routes' carbon transfer and carbon compensation. The most carbon transfer routes between African countries and from countries outside Africa to African countries are from Ethiopia to Kenya and from Honduras to Ghana. Relatively poor countries bear a significant amount of carbon transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The importance of law, and investment contracts in particular, has been noted in recent discussions around ‘land grabbing’. This paper extends a legal analysis to what has been termed ‘green grabbing’ in this special issue and argues that the contracts that shape foreign investment in carbon sequestration projects can pose substantial material risks for governments, local communities and even the environment. Investment contracts also present a formidable obstacle to the implementation of initiatives aimed at recognising the rights of forest-dwelling peoples, particularly the right to participate in decision-making. The paper draws on the experience of developing countries with the negotiation of investment contracts in traditional natural resource sectors and a small number of contracts from Sub-Saharan Africa that specifically deal with carbon sequestration to illustrate the problems that may arise in this new area of foreign investment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Pyrolyzed semi‐coke (SC) is a by‐product of coal‐graded utilization, while the clean and efficient utilization of excess powdery pyrolyzed SC has given a huge challenge. The antibiotic filter residue (AFR) is a kind of biomass solid wastes, which also requires proper disposal or resource utilization. Utilizing the fuel complementary characteristics of pyrolyzed SC and AFR, oxy‐fuel gasification co‐processing can not only effectively realize the resource utilization of solid wastes but also achieve significant CO2 reduction boosting carbon neutrality. Here, the Aspen Plus software was used to simulate the staged oxy‐fuel co‐gasification characteristics of SC and AFR. The simulation results show that with the increase of the SC proportion in blends from 0% to 100%, the lower heating value is raised from 9.48 to 11.26 MJ·m−3, the gas yield is increased from 1.39 to 2.55 m3·kg−1, and the cold gas efficiency grows by 39.28%. The rise of oxygen volume percentage improves the lower heating value in the produced gas and volume fraction of H2, but the contents of CO and CO2, together with the gas yield and cold gas efficiency, show decreasing trends. Raising gasification temperature within a reasonable range is beneficial for enhancing the gasification performance and improving the syngas quality. The raised oxygen equivalent ratio increases the content of CO2 but leads to the decline of CO and H2. For sample AFR, as the oxygen equivalent ratio is varied from 0.6 to 0.8, the volume fraction of CO2 increases by 14.19%, while the contents of CO and H2 reduce by 5.34% and 8.77%, respectively. The present study offers effective support for the co‐disposal and resource utilization of powdery pyrolyzed SC and AFR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study the ARDL model, Mean Group (MG), and the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) model to examine the Environemtnal Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis in 43 African countries pooled into 3 income groups from 1980–2016. The EKC hypothesis is accepted in only 21% of the sample but rejected in 70% of the countries in the total sample. This result shows that carbon emissions increase as economic growth increases in 79% of the countries while economic growth will lead to lower carbon emissions in only a few countries (21%). The study concludes that an increase in economic growth will induce higher emissions in most countries in Africa. These countries should take all possible policy actions such as the massive deployment of renewable energy, carbon tax policy, and the carbon emissions trading scheme to curtain growth in carbon emission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our analysis shows that landowners with customary tenure in Africa can be efficient providers of carbon forestry if tree planting helps secure their permanent claims to the land. If the farmer’s tree planting can reduce the threat of eviction, the amount of land allocated to carbon forestry may be greater or lesser than under private ownership, but it is always more than if tenure security is completely absent. Our results support the view that carbon forestry schemes should accommodate traditional African customary tenure systems, and if designed successfully, can both promote carbon forestry and benefit the poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]