Carbon Emission, Human Capital and Adoption of Green Energy Technology in Sub- Saharan Africa

In this paper, we examine the relationship among human capital, carbon emissions, and the adoption of green energy technology. The study engaged 39 countries from Sub-Saharan African (SSA) for the period 2000 - 2022. We made use of panel data approach that handles cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneity – including Cross-Sectionally Augmented Distributed Lag (CS-DL), Cross-Sectionally Augmented ARDL (CS-ARDL), and Fixed-effect regression with Driscoll-Kraay standard errors. Results from the study show that carbon emissions have a significant negative impact on renewable energy adoption, proving that ecological dilapidation could induce green energy transitions. For SDG-15, mean years of schooling appears to significantly slow down the progress toward achieving the goal, possibly due to construction of schools. While regulatory quality improves the progress toward achieving SDG-15 in East Africa; the regulation hinders the progress in Southern Africa, perhaps due to land crisis in the region. Pre COVID results suggest that mean years of schooling have positive and significant effects on both renewable energy adoption and SDG-15 progress; but the finding reversed in the post-COVID. Lastly, carbon emission has negative and significant effect on both sustainability indicators in the pre-COVID but appear insignificant in the post-COVID. The study contributes directly to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically, SDG-7 Affordable and clean energy and SDG-13 Mitigation of climate change by highlighting the need for clean energy adoption, climate-resilient policy frameworks, and the critical role of education in sustainable energy transitions. The findings emphasize the essence of integrated policy efforts that strengthen human capital and regulatory frameworks to support low-carbon transitions across SSA, with context-specific approaches contingent on sub-regional variations. By integrating indicators related to SDG 4 (quality education), SDG-7 (affordable and clean energy), SDG-13 (climate action) and SDG-15 (life on land), this study provides a multi-goal perspective on sustainable energy transitions in Sub-Saharan Africa.