A non-linear assessment of the urbanization and climate change nexus: the African context

The climate change issue becomes more challenging with the increasing pace of urbanization in Africa. For this purpose, we attempt to examine the relationship urbanization and CO₂ emissions by applying the panel smooth transition regression model for 47 African countries during the spanning time 1990-2014. Our results reveal that the nexus between urbanization and CO₂ emissions is non-linear. Our highlights recorded a monotonic nexus confirming the existence of the EKC hypothesis for the urbanization. In addition, our empirical results determine the threshold of the transition which takes the value of 42.01. Moreover, the estimated slope parameter implies that the nexus between urbanization and CO₂ emissions smoothly switches from one regime to another regime but relatively rapid. Hence, it is extremely important to understand this nexus to take seriously climate change vulnerabilities. Indeed, the African economies are invited to establish efficiently the low-carbon and reduce the spatial heterogeneity to generate the green development path and provide effective structures for a platform for sustainable cities.