Energy Studies Review

From NDC to national long-term low greenhouse gas emission development strategies compatible with a 2 °C target

Sandrine Mathy — 2023-08-15

Given the lack of collective ambition resulting from the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the objective of
the Paris Agreement, countries must submit revised and more ambitious NDCs. Countries are invited to formulate longterm
low greenhouse gas emission development strategies that should be designed within the context of other
development goals and co-benefits. This article addresses the issues related to the evaluation of national trajectories
developed in a cooperative framework aiming at collectively reaching 2°C and based on the integration of development
priorities and co-benefits into national trajectories. The national decarbonization trajectories discussed in this article
were developed as part of the Deep Decarbonization Pathway Project (DDPP) by the 16 major GHG emitting countries.
These 16 bottom-up decarbonization strategies are implemented in the POLES model, a partial equilibrium model of the
global energy sector, which is an appropriate tool to provide a harmonized contextual framework for assessing these
trajectories. The results make it possible to evaluate the gap between, on the one hand, national DDPP trajectories and
NDCs and, on the other hand, national DDPP trajectories and a scenario resulting from a minimization of abatement costs.
They allow to feed a discussion on the development of NDCs and the move away from national trajectories of trajectories
minimizing the overall reduction cost and produced with integrated assessment models.

Succeeding in Energy Transition in Sub-Saharan Africa: Does Institutional Quality Matter?

Brou Emmanuel Aka — 2025-01-15

The objective of this article is to examine the effect of the quality of institutions on energy transition in 19 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries over the period 1996-2016. To achieve this, we proceed in two steps. We first use the principal component analysis (PCA) to construct a composite indicator of institutional quality, from Kaufmann’s (1996) six indicators of governance. Then, we estimate an autoregressive distributive lag model (ARDL) on panel data using the pooled mean group (PMG) estimation technique. Our results show that the quality of institutions determines the energy transition in SSA. The associated coefficient is positive and statistically significant. In addition, our results show that economic growth and trade openness promote energy transition. On the other hand, it emerges that CO₂emissions hinder energy transition, due to the high dependence of the countries considered on fossil fuels. We suggest an improvement in the quality of institutions and the implementation of political incentives favorable to the adoption of new technologies.

A Graphical and Beta Analysis of the Effect of Increased Ethanol Production on the Volatility of Corn Prices

Frank Tenkorang — 2024-08-12

Increased demand for corn-based ethanol puts upward pressure on prices of corn and other commodities, such as soybeans, and possibly worsens their price volatility. The paper investigates the changes in agricultural commodities' standard deviation and beta sizes due to ethanol production in the US. Standard deviations and beta estimations are compared for the ethanol pre-expansion and expansion periods. The results indicate a high level of price volatility in the second period, which could be attributed to ethanol expansion.

Examining the Foreign direct investment, Renewable energy consumption, and economic growth nexus in MENA countries: A bootstrap ARDL evidence

Tarek Ghazouani — 2025-01-18

This study examines the relationship among foreign direct investment, renewable energy consumption, and economic growth for seven Middle East and North Africa countries over the period 1980–2017 using the bootstrap autoregressive distributed lag test. The long run analysis reveals evidence of cointegraion among FDI inflows, renewable energy consumption, and economic growth in all countries except Iran and Turkey, where real GDP is used as the dependent variable. A similar result is observed in economies, with the exception of Mauritania when FDI inflow is treated as a dependent variable. Whereas, when RE is taken as a dependent variable, cointegration does occur in Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. In regards to the direction of causality, the analysis provides varied results among diverse variable for various countries. In this context, this study recommends increasing public awareness and attention in the advantages of renewable energy and clean technologies.

ICT and energy consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa: Effects and transmission channels

Edmond Noubissi — 2024-11-10

This paper contributes to the literature on the relationship between information and communication technologies (ICTs) and energy consumption. Despite increasing attention on the subject, existing studies have not yet investigated the channels through which ICTs affect energy demand. We use a stochastic impact model extended to the population, wealth and technology regression model to estimate both the effect and transmission of ICTs on energy demand in 24 sub-Saharan African countries from 1995 to 2018. Empirical results show that ICT use, measured by mobile and fixed-line telephone penetration significantly reduces energy consumption.

In addition, the mediation analysis reveals that ICTs not only have a direct negative effect on energy consumption but also an indirect negative effect through its impact on GDP per capita and industrial sector development and a mixed indirect effect through financial development. However, the total effect is negative and indicates that ICTs are reducing energy consumption in sub-Saharan Africa. To accentuate the negative effects of ICTs on energy consumption, Governments should design policies to improve access to credit for the private sector, reduce income inequalities among populations, promote the use of industrial development and provide financial incentives for the development of green technologies.