Sustainable environment in West Africa: the roles of financial development, energy consumption, trade openness, urbanization and natural resource depletion

The need for cleaner and safer environments for all humankind remains a topical issue that cannot be overemphasized. To provide an updated perspective, we adopted a broad-based empirical overview of the relevant factors that impact environmental quality (ecological footprints) in West Africa. These nations are predominantly developing countries laden with monumental environmental challenges. Notably, studies addressing the peculiar environmental challenges of the region are still sketchy; hence, this novel contribution was obtained from a panel dataset between 1980 and 2017 within a modified STIRPAT framework. Outcomes from enhanced panel cointegration tests reveal long-run affiliation among the enlisted variables. Additionally, the PMG estimator suggests that financial development and natural resource rent do not contribute significantly to environmental quality. However, it is evident that income, energy consumption, trade openness and urbanization escalate environmental decay significantly in the region. The outcome of the AMG, to an extent, upholds the above assertions. Additionally, the Granger non-causality test based on Juodis, Karavias and Sarafidis (2021) procedure demonstrates that positive causality runs from income, energy, urbanization and natural resource rent to the ecological footprint in West Africa. Accordingly, relevant policy guidelines have been proposed for safer environments.