The economies of the African countries are gradually expanding, but they mostly depend on fossil fuels for energy use. This exacerbates environmental damage, which renders the continent susceptible to the effects of climate change. Therefore, this study aims to examine the integrating role of renewable energy transition and governance quality in the income–environmental quality nexus in Africa. The study applies second-generation econometric techniques on annual panel data of 34 African countries covering the period 1996–2018. The fixed effect ordinary least square (OLS-FE), feasible generalized least squares (FGLS), system generalized method of moments (SYS-GMM) and cross-sectionally augmented ARDL (CS-ARDL) are applied to both the baseline model and the interactive models. The results provide diverse findings. In the baseline models, the study verifies the increasing effect of income on carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, which continues to dampen environmental quality. Regarding the interaction effect models, the findings show that the interactive term of renewable energy transition and income per capita has a significant negative effect on CO₂ emission levels which implies that renewable energy transition ensures green growth. Further, the results indicate that the interactive terms of governance quality have significant reducing effect on emission levels. In terms of policy, achieving green growth necessitates increased renewable energy deployment and policies that will enhance governance effectiveness towards enforcing environmental regulations.

中文翻译：

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非洲收入与环境的关系：可再生能源转型和治理质量的整合作用

非洲国家经济逐步扩张，但能源使用大多依赖化石燃料。这加剧了环境破坏，使非洲大陆容易受到气候变化的影响。因此，本研究旨在探讨可再生能源转型和治理质量在非洲收入与环境质量关系中的综合作用。该研究将第二代计量经济学技术应用于 1996 年至 2018 年期间 34 个非洲国家的年度面板数据。固定效应普通最小二乘法 (OLS-FE)、可行广义最小二乘法 (FGLS)、系统广义矩法 (SYS-GMM) 和横截面增强 ARDL (CS-ARDL) 均应用于基线模型和互动模型。结果提供了不同的发现。在基线模型中，该研究验证了收入对二氧化碳 (CO ₂ ) 排放的影响不断增加，这继续损害环境质量。关于交互效应模型，研究结果表明，可再生能源转型与人均收入的交互项对CO ₂排放水平具有显着的负向影响，这意味着可再生能源转型确保了绿色增长。此外，结果表明治理质量的交互项对排放水平具有显着的降低作用。在政策方面，实现绿色增长需要增加可再生能源的部署和政策，以提高执行环境法规的治理有效性。